  P-V characteristic of photovoltaic (PV) arrays under partially shaded
conditions (PSC) has multiple peaks, and conventional maximum power point
tracking (MPPT) algorithms may fail to track the global maximum power point
(GMPP) because of their insufficient intelligence in discriminating the local
and global peaks. This paper proposes a novel fast MPPT method to achieve GMPP
of PV array under all PSCs. The proposed method reduces the number of required
samples and increases the speed of GMPP tracking based on comprehensive study
of I-V and P-V characteristics of PV array. Performance of the proposed method
has been evaluated in simulations of different PSCs. Also, its performance has
been compared with two selected methods in the literature through simulations.
Comparisons highlight the superiority of the proposed method.
