An Efficient Partial Power Processing DC/DC Converter for Distributed PV Architectures

Author

Agamy, Mohammed S. ; Harfman-Todorovic, M. ; Elasser, Ahmed ; Song Chi ; Steigerwald, Robert L. ; Sabate, Juan A. ; McCann, Adam J. ; Li Zhang ; Mueller, Frank J.

Author_Institution

Sch. of Eng., Univ. of British Columbia, Kelowna, BC, Canada

Volume

29

Issue

2

fYear

2014

fDate

Feb. 2014

Firstpage

674

Lastpage

686

Abstract

In this paper, a dc/dc power converter for distributed photovoltaic (PV) plant architectures is presented. The proposed converter has the advantages of simplicity, high efficiency, and low cost. High efficiency is achieved by having a portion of the input PV power directly fed forward to the output without being processed by the converter. The operation of this converter allows for a simplified maximum power point tracker design using fewer measurements. The stability analysis of the distributed PV system comprised of the proposed dc/dc converters confirms the stable operation even with a large number of deployed converters. The experimental results show a composite weighted efficiency of 98.22% with very high maximum power point tracking efficiency.

Keywords

DC-DC power convertors; distributed power generation; maximum power point trackers; photovoltaic power systems; power system stability; MPPT; distributed PV plant architecture; distributed PV system stability analysis; maximum power point tracker design; partial power processing DC-DC converter; Capacitors; Inverters; Maximum power point trackers; Power system reliability; Reliability; Topology; Voltage control; Buck–boost converter; distributed photovoltaic (PV) architectures; maximum power point tracking (MPPT); partial power processing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Power Electronics, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0885-8993

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TPEL.2013.2255315

Filename

6490064