In order to promote renewable energy, Tunisia has developed a large program to exploitate photovoltaic systems (PV) to provide electric power in rural electrification. These needs increase continually following standard of living improvements, from lighting and media communication (radio, TV) to motors, refrigeration and pumping. The fluctuation of solar energy on one hand, and the necessity to optimise available solar energy on the other, it is useful to develop new efficient and flexible modes to control motors. A vectorial control of an asynchronous motor fed by a photovoltaic system is proposed. In this case, the control of the circulating current becomes an important objective in the algorithm design. This paper presents an efficient current controller scheme that can achieve high accuracy and a fast dynamic response of induction machine. This scheme uses voltage decoupling and proportional integral controller loops (PI). Furthermore, to operate the PV array at its maximum power point for every instant, the PV system must contain a maximum power point tracking controller (MPPT). Good static and dynamic performances were obtained in simulation of the proposed structure. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.