In this study, a global maximum power point tracking
technique based on invasive weed optimization algorithm for
PV array under partial shading conditions is proposed. This
technique is not used before with this problem. The
power-voltage curve of the PV array has several local
maximum power points. The proposed method converges
successfully to the global maximum. An overall statistical
appraisal of the proposed technique compared with different
meta-heuristic techniques mentioned in literature is executed
under different scenarios of shading conditions to estimate
the superiority of the proposed technique over all other
techniques. The statistical metrics are including geometric
mean, the root mean square error, mean absolute error,
standard deviation, arithmetic mean, significance, and
efficiency, in addition to a proposed one for measuring
solution stability. The proposed algorithm is considered to be
the most efficient and outstanding optimization technique
compared to corresponding ones.