Single-stage boost inverter reliability in solar photovoltaic applications

The boost inverter presents an interesting topology for solar photovoltaic (PV) applications as a single stage that provides regulated, boosted, and inverted output voltage from a nonlinear dc input. While the boost inverter has been previously addressed from design, implementation, and control perspectives, this paper analyzes its fault modes, failures, and reliability. The inverter is first experimentally tested to validate a simulation model used in the reliability analysis. The simulation model is then used to analyze the effect of various faults on the system performance. Results of this analysis yield a Markov reliability model from which the mean-time-to-failure (MTTF) of the inverter is found. Results show that the boost inverter can be a very reliable topology with low component count for PV applications.