Utility-interactive solar photovoltaic power conditioner with soft switching sinewave modulated inverter for residential applications

A utility interactive sinewave pulse width modulation soft commutation inverter using trench-gate IGBTs for the solar photovoltaic power conversion conditioning and processing with a high frequency transformer link is presented for residential applications. As compared with the conventional full-bridge hard switching sinewave PWM inverter with a high frequency AC link, the simplest single-ended quasi-resonant soft switching sinewave modulated inverter with a sinewave duty cycle pulse control scheme is implemented, resulting in size and weight reduction, low-cost and efficiency. This paper presents a prototype circuit and system of the single-ended zero voltage soft switching sinewave PWM inverter for solar power conditioner, along with its operating principle and unique features. In addition to these, this paper proposes a control implementation to deliver high quality output current. Major design of each component and the power loss analysis under actual power conditioning and processing is also discussed and evaluated from an experimental point of view. A newly-developed utility-interactive sinewave power conditioning processor which has 92.5% efficiency at 4 kW output is demonstrated herein. It is designed for 540 mm-300 mm-125 mm in size and 20 kg in weight.