AbstractA new perturbed‐based extremum seeking control (PESC) scheme is proposed in this paper to track the global maximum power point (GMPP). The PESC scheme has two control loops based on power of the photovoltaic (PV) array: the first loop operates as usually to track the maximum power point and the second sweeps all local MPPs to locate the GMPP. Once the GMPP is located based on its uniqueness (after the PV pattern is quickly scanned many times, depending on the PV pattern's profile), the GMPP is accurately tracked based on first control loop. The used PV patterns have the profile of the PV power characteristics obtained for PV array under partially shaded conditions (PSCs). This PESC scheme is proposed to track the GMPP in the PV applications, but also in other multimodal problems from industry, being a good motif to revive the specialists' interest for the extremum seeking control field. The results obtained here are very promising for both search speed and tracking accuracy performances of the GMPP under different PSCs simulated on the PV array. Thus, the energy efficiency of PV array controlled with the proposed PESC scheme will increase with more than 1.2% in comparison with that obtained with the other MPP algorithms because of better performance shown by this PESC scheme. A 99.6% tracking accuracy is obtained here in comparison with a maximum 98.4% tracking accuracy reported in the literature. Furthermore, 100% hit and high search speed are obtained here for the GMPP localization. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.