Analysis, Design, and Experimental Results of a Novel Soft-Switching Snubberless Current-Fed Half-Bridge Front-End Converter-Based PV Inverter

This paper proposes a new novel snubberless current-fed half-bridge front-end isolated dc/dc converter-based inverter for photovoltaic applications. It is suitable for grid-tied (utility interface) as well as off-grid (standalone) application based on the mode of control. The proposed converter attains clamping of the device voltage by secondary modulation, thus eliminating the need of snubber or active-clamp. Zero-current switching or natural commutation of primary devices and zero-voltage switching of secondary devices is achieved. Soft-switching is inherent owing to the proposed secondary modulation and is maintained during wide variation in voltage and power transfer capacity and thus is suitable for photovoltaic (PV) applications. Primary device voltage is clamped at reflected output voltage, and secondary device voltage is clamped at output voltage. Steady-state operation and analysis, and design procedure are presented. Simulation results using PSIM 9.0 are given to verify the proposed analysis and design. An experimental converter prototype rated at 200 W has been designed, built, and tested in the laboratory to verify and demonstrate the converter performance over wide variations in input voltage and output power for PV applications. The proposed converter is a true isolated boost converter and has higher voltage conversion (boost) ratio compared to the conventional active-clamped converter.

[1]  Akshay Kumar Rathore,et al.  Analysis, Design and Experimental Results of Wide Range ZVS Active-Clamped L-L Type Current-Fed DC/DC Converter for Fuel Cells to Utility Interface , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.

[2]  Y. Lembeye,et al.  Novel Half-Bridge Inductive DC–DC Isolated Converters for Fuel Cell Applications , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion.

[3]  Quan Li,et al.  A Current Fed Two-Inductor Boost Converter With an Integrated Magnetic Structure and Passive Lossless Snubbers for Photovoltaic Module Integrated Converter Applications , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics.

[4]  G. Escobar,et al.  Practical implementation of an interleaved boost converter using SiC diodes for PV applications , 2011, 8th International Conference on Power Electronics - ECCE Asia.

[5]  Jih-Sheng Lai,et al.  Derivation, Analysis, and Implementation of a Boost–Buck Converter-Based High-Efficiency PV Inverter , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics.

[6]  P. Wolfs,et al.  A leakage-inductance-based ZVS two-inductor boost converter with integrated magnetics , 2005, IEEE Power Electronics Letters.

[7]  F. Blaabjerg,et al.  A review of single-phase grid-connected inverters for photovoltaic modules , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications.

[8]  Sang-Kyoo Han,et al.  A new active clamping zero-voltage switching PWM current-fed half-bridge converter , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics.

[9]  T. Shimizu,et al.  Flyback-Type Single-Phase Utility Interactive Inverter With Power Pulsation Decoupling on the DC Input for an AC Photovoltaic Module System , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics.

[10]  Peter J. Wolfs.  A current-sourced DC-DC converter derived via the duality principle from the half-bridge converter , 1993, IEEE Trans. Ind. Electron..

[11]  Teuvo Suntio,et al.  Issues on Solar-Generator Interfacing With Current-Fed MPP-Tracking Converters , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics.

[12]  Chung-Yuen Won,et al.  Fuel Cell Generation System With a New Active Clamping Current-Fed Half-Bridge Converter , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion.

[13]  Prasad N. Enjeti,et al.  Design of a wide input range DC-DC converter with a robust power control scheme suitable for fuel cell power conversion , 2004, Nineteenth Annual IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition, 2004. APEC '04..

[14]  Roger A. Dougal,et al.  Parallel-Connected Solar PV System to Address Partial and Rapidly Fluctuating Shadow Conditions , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.

[15]  Masafumi Miyatake,et al.  Maximum Power Point Tracking of Multiple Photovoltaic Arrays: A PSO Approach , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

[16]  A. Bhat,et al.  A Comparison of Soft-Switched DC-DC Converters for Fuel Cell to Utility Interface Application , 2007 .

[17]  Seddik Bacha,et al.  Cascaded DC–DC Converter Photovoltaic Systems: Power Optimization Issues , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.

[18]  J. Mazumdar,et al.  High frequency low cost DC-AC inverter design with fuel cell source for home applications , 2002, Conference Record of the 2002 IEEE Industry Applications Conference. 37th IAS Annual Meeting (Cat. No.02CH37344).

[19]  T. Suntio,et al.  Issues on solar-generator-interfacing with voltage-fed converter , 2009, 2009 35th Annual Conference of IEEE Industrial Electronics.

[20]  G. Moschopoulos,et al.  A Comparative Study of a New ZCS DC–DC Full-Bridge Boost Converter With a ZVS Active-Clamp Converter , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics.

[21]  J. Bordonau,et al.  Topologies of single-phase inverters for small distributed power generators: an overview , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics.

[22]  V. Agarwal,et al.  An Integrated Hybrid Power Supply for Distributed Generation Applications Fed by Nonconventional Energy Sources , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion.

[23]  Toshihisa Shimizu,et al.  A novel high-performance utility-interactive photovoltaic inverter system , 2003 .

[24]  Toshihisa Shimizu,et al.  Generation control circuit for photovoltaic modules , 2001 .

[25]  Takahiko Iida,et al.  An inverter using buck-boost type chopper circuits for popular small-scale photovoltaic power system , 1999, IECON'99. Conference Proceedings. 25th Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (Cat. No.99CH37029).

[26]  Chung-Yuen Won,et al.  An active clamping current-fed half-bridge converter for fuel-cell generation systems , 2004, 2004 IEEE 35th Annual Power Electronics Specialists Conference (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37551).

[27]  G. Escobar,et al.  Practical Design and Implementation Procedure of an Interleaved Boost Converter Using SiC Diodes for PV Applications , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics.

[28]  Weidong Xiao,et al.  Regulation of Photovoltaic Voltage , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics.