An inductor-less bidirectional DC-DC converter topology for high voltage gain applications

Abstract

Many applications, such as residential grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) system, fuel cells, thermoelectric generators (TEG), and high intensity discharge (HID) lamp ballast used in automotive systems, require high step-up dc-dc converters. In this paper an inductor-less, bidirectional, high step-up dc-dc converter topology is proposed. At high temperature, performance of magnetic components degrades severely. The proposed converter does not possess any inductor or magnetic element, which makes it suitable for high temperature applications. Furthermore, the proposed converter has bidirectional power flow capability, which is an essential requirement for residential grid-connected PV system with battery storage. The proposed converter possesses relatively lower number of components and has lower voltage stress across switches and capacitors as compare to other existing switched capacitors (SC) converters. A comparative analysis of the proposed converter with some popular existing SC converters is presented in this paper. A user friendly, inductor-less, multi voltage gain boost converter has been designed and tested in OrCAD PSpice environment. Finally, simulation results are presented to validate the performance of the proposed converter.