AbstractIn general, the photovoltaic (PV) is considered as the best selection among renewable energy resources due to its nonpolluted operation and good flexibility condition. The PV system is affected because of the partial shading conditions (PSCs), which reduce the generated power. During steady‐state operating conditions, there occurs a time delay in tracking the Global maximum power point (GMPP) and Local maximum power point (LMPP) under PSCs using the perturb and observe (P&O) method. In order to overcome such shortcomings, this paper proposed a hybrid algorithm with a P&O technique to improve the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) for the PV system under PSC. In addition to this, the P&O technique is utilized to achieve the LMPP in the first section, and the hybrid algorithm is utilized to achieve the GMPP in the second section. Here, the hybrid technique is the integration of Cauchy preferential crossover (CC) with the flower pollination algorithm (FPA). Furthermore, the exploitation ability of the FPA is enhanced by the CC, and the combined hybrid algorithm has the ability to produce the optimal duty cycle for the DC–DC boost converter for MPPT. Then the proposed method will be executed in MATLAB/Simulink model, and it is contrasted with the existing methods such as CC, current sensorless (CS), and FPA, respectively. The experimental results and analysis reveal that the proposed approach provides better performances when compared with several other metaheuristic algorithms.