This paper presents a novel high performance controller to track the maximum power point (MPP) of a photovoltaic (PV) module under fast irradiation change and partial shading conditions. A DC-DC boost converter is selected as the power conditioning unit (PCU) to coordinate the operating point of the system with the maximum power point of the PV module. The proposed algorithm uses a scanning technique to determine the maximum power delivering capacity of the panel at a given operating condition and controls the PCU to extract the same from the PV panel. The proposed method is implemented, analyzed and verified in MATLAB/Simulink software. The method proposed is compared with two other methods, perturb and observe (P&O) and incremental conductance (INC) under the same operating conditions: The proposed method is also experimentally verified using an Agilent Technologies E4362A solar array simulator integrated to the grid with the help of a digitally controlled high voltage DC-DC and DC-AC converters. Simulations as well as experimental results are presented for fast change in irradiation and partial shading conditions. The results obtained clearly show that the proposed method is simple to implement with minimum tracking time and high tracking efficiency proving superior to the other two methods. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.