Fundamental frequency PWM control of IGBT clamped three phase nine levels inverter topology for photovoltaic system

Abstract

The multilevel multi-string inverter has gained much attention in recent years due to its advantages in lower switching loss, better electromagnetic compatibility, higher voltage capability, and lower harmonic distortion. Solar Energy is one of the favorable renewable energy resources and the multilevel inverter has been proven to be one of the important enabling technologies in photovoltaic (PV) utilization. As the number of levels increases, it is important to control more switches in parallel with their concurrent processing capability. This paper proposes an IGBT clamped three phase nine levels photovoltaic inverter topology with a multicarrier dual reference pulse-width modulated (PWM) control scheme. Four carrier waves of the fundamental frequency and different amplitudes are compared with two references (a sine wave and its opposite) for generating the control signals of the switches. Some DC/DC boost converters are used to amplify the voltage produced by the photovoltaic generators. Each of these converters is controlled by an MPPT algorithm in order to track the maximum power point of the GPV. Results of simulation in Matlab environment are given and discussed.