High efficiency multilevel flying-capacitor DC/DC converter for distributed generation applications

This paper presents a high efficiency multilevel flying-capacitor (FC) DC/DC power conversion with the reduced component rating and device count for distributed power generation applications. A resonant technique is adopted for the proposed FC DC/DC converter to achieve the zero-current-switching for all the switches. Theoretical analysis is carried out for the quintuple FC configuration. The proposed converter is evaluated to the conventional FC converter in terms of the component rating and count to highlight its advantages with respect to the power density, power loss, and cost. The experimental results of a 1 kW prototype FC converter are presented to validate the theoretical analysis and principles as well as attest the feasibility of the proposed topologies.