Solar Controller

1.What is MPPT Meaning ?
MPPT Meaning maximum power point tracker.

a high efficiency DC to DC converter that presents an optimal electrical load to a solar panel or array and produces a voltage suitable for the load.most commonly for a solar panel or array, and converts the power to a voltage or current level which is more suitable to whatever load the system is designed to drive.

Panel tracking - this is where the panels are on a mount that follows the sun. The most common are the Zomeworks and Wattsun. These optimize output by following the sun across the sky for maximum sunlight. These typically give you about a 15% increase in winter and up to a 35% increase in summer.

This is just the opposite of the seasonal variation for MPPT Solar Controller. Since panel temperatures are much lower in winter, they put out more power. And winter is usually when you need the most power from your solar panels due to shorter days.

Maximum Power Point Tracking is electronic tracking - usually digital. The charge controller looks at the output of the solar panel, and compares it to the battery voltage. It then figures out what is the best power that the panel can put out to charge the battery. It takes this and converts it to best voltage to get maximum AMPS into the battery. (Remember, it is Amps into the battery that counts). Most modern MPPT's are around 93-97% efficient in the conversion. You typically get a 20 to 45% power gain in winter and 10-15% in summer. Actual gain can vary widely depending weather, temperature, battery state of charge, and other factors.

Grid tie systems are becoming more popular as the price of solar drops and electric rates go up. There are several brands of grid-tie only (that is, no battery) inverters available. All of these have built in MPPT. Efficiency is around 94% to 97% for the MPPT conversion on those.

2.What Advantage of MPPT solar controller?

In any applications which PV module is energy source, MPPT solar controller is used to correct for detecting the variations in the current-voltage characteristics of solar cell and shown by I-V curve.

MPPT solar controller is necessary for any solar power systems need to extract maximum power from PV module; it forces PV module to operate at voltage close to maximum power point to draw maximum available power.

MPPT solar controller allows users to use PV module with a higher voltage output than operating voltage of battery system.
For example, if PV module has to be placed far away from charge controller and battery, its wire size must be very large to reduce voltage drop. With a MPPT solar controller, users can wire PV module for 24 or 48 V (depending on charge controller and PV modules) and bring power into 12 or 24 V battery system. This means it reduces the wire size needed while retaining full output of PV module.

MPPT solar controller reduces complexity of system while output of system is high efficiency. Additionally, it can be applied to use with more energy sources. Since PV output power is used to control DC-DC converter directly.