Evaluation of a single-stage current source inverter with high-voltage gain supplied by a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell

Alternative energy sources have for some time attracted great interest in the area of static converter development. This fact is related in greater part to issues such as sustainability and detrimental effects on the natural environment, which all contribute to the viability of this type of energy source. The principal challenge therefore becomes the development of systems that transform the produced DC current into AC current. The authors of this study have therefore focused their efforts upon the establishment of a new control strategy applied to a step-down/step-up single-stage inverter with imposed waveforms of input current and output voltage. The proposed control strategy provides high-voltage gain without the use of a high-frequency transformer, which contributes to weight and size reduction in the proposed DC-AC converter structure. A theoretical analysis is presented and corroborated through the experimental results of a 400 W laboratory prototype fed by a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell.