This paper presents an intelligent control method for the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) of a photovoltaic system under variable temperature and irradiance conditions. First, for the purpose of comparison and because of its proven and good performances, the perturbation and observation (P&O) technique is briefly introduced. A fuzzy logic controller based MPPT (FLC) is then proposed which has shown better performances compared to the P&O MPPT based approach. The proposed FLC has been also improved using genetic algorithms (GA) for optimisation. Different development stages are presented and the optimized fuzzy logic MPPT controller (OFLC) is then simulated and evaluated, which has shown better performances. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.