A Hybrid Gradient Boosting – XGBoost MPPT Strategy for Photovoltaic Systems Under Partial Shading

A Hybrid Gradient Boosting – XGBoost MPPT Strategy for Photovoltaic Systems Under Partial Shading

Rida AMINE, Noureddine EL BARBRI, Hatim AMEZIANE

Abstract. Maximum Power Point Tracking is a key feature in the power conversion of Photovoltaic PV-based power systems, which enables the system to deliver maximum energy based on fluctuating environmental conditions. Conventional MPPT approaches, such as the Perturb and Observe method (P&O) and Incremental Conductance algorithm (INC), have been observed to degrade as a result of multiple local maxima in the power-voltage (P-V) curve during partial shading conditions (PSC). A novel hybrid MPPT technique based on Gradient Boosting Regression and Extreme Gradient Boosting is presented in this paper. The key idea is to exploit the strong robustness of GBR in mid-high (sunny) irradiance and the generalization capability of XGBoost at low (cloudy) irradiance, by leveraging a hysteresis-based switching scheme that takes into account the current-irradiance level and switches between models. Irradiance level from 200 to 1000 W/m² data simulation results demonstrate that the proposed hybrid controller maintains the load power very near to the theoretical maximum, obtaining instantaneous MPPT efficiencies from 95.73% up to 97.37% and global efficiency of 96.83% across the entire profile, which are largely improved over single-model GBR (83.8%) and XGBoost (78.7%) baselines referenced works.

Keywords
Photovoltaic Systems, Maximum Power Point Tracking, Partial Shading, Gradient Boosting, Xgboost, Machine Learning

Published online 4/25/2026, 9 pages
Copyright © 2026 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA

Citation: Rida AMINE, Noureddine EL BARBRI, Hatim AMEZIANE, A Hybrid Gradient Boosting – XGBoost MPPT Strategy for Photovoltaic Systems Under Partial Shading, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 64, pp 535-543, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644904091-67

The article was published as article 67 of the book Energy Futures

Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.

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