Decoupling of Fluctuating Power in Single-Phase Systems Through a Symmetrical Half-Bridge Circuit

Single-phase ac/dc or dc/ac systems are inherently subject to the harmonic disturbance that is caused by the well-known double-line frequency ripple power. This issue can be eased through the installation of bulky electrolytic capacitors in the dc link. Unfortunately, such passive filtering approach may inevitably lead to low power density and limited system lifetime. An alternative approach is to use active power decoupling so that the ripple power can be diverted into other energy storage devices to gain an improved system performance. Nevertheless, all existing active methods have to introduce extra energy storage elements, either inductors or film capacitors in the system to store the ripple power, and this again leads to increased component costs. In view of this, this paper presents a symmetrical half-bridge circuit which utilizes the dc-link capacitors to absorb the ripple power, and the only additional components are a pair of switches and a small filtering inductor. A design example is presented and the proposed circuit concept is also verified with simulation and experimental results. It shows that at least ten times capacitance reduction can be achieved with the proposed active power decoupling method, and both the input current and output voltage of the converter can be well regulated even when very small dc-link capacitors are employed.