Abstract
Photovoltaic (PV) energy conversion has been on the spotlight of scientific research on renewable energy for several years. In recent years, the bulk of the research on PV has focused on transformerless grid-connected inverters, more efficient than traditional line transformer-based ones, but more critical from a power quality point of view, especially in terms of ground leakage current. Neutral-point-clamped (NPC) inverters have recently gained interest due to their intrinsically low ground leakage current and high efficiency, especially for MOSFET-based topologies. This paper presents an active NPC (ANPC) topology equipped with 650-V silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs, with a new modulation strategy that allows to reap the benefits of the wide-bandgap devices. An efficiency improvement is obtained due to the parallel operation of two devices during the freewheeling intervals. Simulations and experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed converter.
Highlights
In recent years, an increment of production from renewable resources was registered in the energy mixes of several countries
The silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs maintain better performances than the IGBTs even though they come in a TO-220 package, smaller than the TO-247 of the IGBTs
In this paper an improved modulation for an active Neutral Point Clamped (NPC) inverter equipped with 650 V SiC MOSFETs was proposed
Summary
An increment of production from renewable resources was registered in the energy mixes of several countries. Many types of single-phase PV inverters were developed, both in industry and in academia [1]–[5] Transformerless inverters are those that can achieve the highest efficiency levels, but their use in grid-connected systems is not straightforward. It relies on 4 switches and 2 diodes, synthesizing a three-level output voltage waveform. In order to take advantage of the low conduction losses and resistive on-state characteristic of the MOSFETs, the parallel conduction of the MOSFETs will be used during the freewheeling phases of the output current This can be achieved employing silicon carbide (SiC) instead of silicon devices. The paper has been extended and improved, and an extensive power loss analysis has been added
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