Current or Time Sharing Switches for High Efficiency Photovoltaic Power Systems

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the parallel operation of different switches in a switch mode power converter. In high power applications, multi-switch PWM power conditioners may be preferred despite a higher component count, due to the absence of low frequency filters, reduced switching losses and fault tolerance. The paper demonstrates how current sharing (CSH) and time sharing (TSH) lead to the reduction of switching stress in the parallel operation of switches in any converter. The solutions proposed in this study can be applied on different scales to other power conditioners for renewable energy applications. Discussions of the concepts, hypotheses and computer simulations are verified by 1 kW experimental results