Purpose The purpose of this study is expected to cover the main issues in photovoltaic (PV) power systems, including efficiency degradation, intermittent voltage and frequency variations in microgrids, inverter inefficiency and cost-effectiveness limitations. It proposes a high-tech PV power generation and use system to enhance the efficiency, stability and economic value of PV systems. Design/methodology/approach The proposed system integrates a hybrid photovoltaic-thermal (PV/T) configuration, a novel fuzzy-modified coot optimization (F-MCO)-based maximum power point tracking (MPPT) controller and a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) model enhanced with elephant herding optimization (EHO) for grid-forming inverter control. The F-MCO MPPT continuously adapts to environmental variations to extract maximum power, while the DRL-EHO-based inverter ensures autonomous voltage and frequency regulation in islanded microgrid mode. The system is evaluated using key performance indicators, including inverter efficiency, voltage and frequency stability and overall cost-effectiveness. Findings The simulations indicate that the proposed system can increase power production by a large margin, provide stable voltages and frequencies across different loads and enhance inverter functionality. The approach also has high potential to lower operational costs and to expand the use of high-quality, low-cost PV power systems. It is necessary to mention that these performance claims are based on the MATLAB/Simulink simulation studies and reflect the theoretical maximum performance. Practical implementation might be influenced by unmodelled physical effects, non-ideal hardware, sensor noise, communication delays and manufacturing variation, which may reduce actual end performance relative to simulated performance. The next step in the work will be to use hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) prototyping and field pilot testing to confirm the simulation results under real operating conditions. Originality/value The study presents a novel F-MCO MPPT method with a DRL-EHO-assisted grid-forming inverter, as well as a hybrid PV/T system with dual energy output. This unified system can provide an innovative way to maximize electrical and thermal efficiency, improve inverter performance and lower operating costs simultaneously, thereby addressing constraints that have not been adequately addressed in earlier PV system research.
Karmakar et al. (Mon,) studied this question.