Performance analysis of interleaved DC-DC boost converter for Photo-Voltaic power generation systems

This study analyses the performance of an Interleaved DC-DC Boost Converter (IBC) for Photo-Voltaic (PV) power generation system. Renewable energy sources such as fuel cells and photovoltaic cells have received worldwide recognition in research fields. PV solar cell has started playing a vital role in energy generation. Most recent research and development on them has focused on extracting maximum amount of power. Its electrical characteristics vary with temperature and solar light intensity, which changes the location of Maximum Power Point (MPP) that yields maximum power generation. Moreover, the power generated by PV is not consistent over the full operating range. Due to these limitations, there is a need for highly efficient output power maximization. There is a renewed focus on the power electronic converters to interface them with DC energy sources to produce high power. This topology increases the efficiency of IBC, minimizes switching losses and ripples by adopting a resonant soft-switching method. This study proposes a soft-switching IBC, composed of two shunted elementary boost conversion units. The obtained results exposed that IBC has better performance characteristics than a conventional boost converter due to its increased efficiency, reduction in size and greater reliability. The Simulation studies have been carried out in MATLAB-Simulink environment.