A 5-level high efficiency low cost Hybrid Neutral Point Clamped transformerless inverter for grid connected photovoltaic application

With the increase in the level of solar energy integration into the power grid, there arises a need for highly efficient multilevel transformerless grid connected inverter which is able to inject more power into the grid. In this paper, a novel 5-level Hybrid Neutral Point Clamped transformerless inverter topology is proposed which has no inherent ground leakage current. The proposed inverter is analyzed in detail and its switching pattern to generate multilevel output is discussed. The proposed inverter is compared with some popular transformerless inverter topologies. Simulations and experiments results confirm the feasibility and good performance of the proposed inverter.