High Gain Single Stage Boosting Inverter for Alternative Energy Generation

Ann Maria Paul, Aswathi S, Nila Thilakan, Nimitha Gopinath, Dr. Leesha Paul

Abstract: A high gain Single-Stage Boosting Inverter (SSBI) for alternative energy generation is used here. The SSBI has a simple topology and a lower component count as compared to the traditional two stage approach. A tapped inductor is employed to attain high input voltage step-up. SSBI has the advantage of high voltage step-up which can be further increased by adjusting the tapped inductor turns ratio and thus operate off low DC input voltage of a single PV panel. SSBI shares the switches of the power train in a manner that allows merging the DC-DC step up converter stage and the grid tied DC-AC inverter stage. Hence, SSBI is realized in a single stage. Pulse Width Modulation was employed to generate AC voltage output. This method was applied to shape the output voltage. It allowed applying smaller decoupling capacitor value, and low THD output for different types of highly non-linear loads was obtained. Since the efficiency of a solar cell is very low, in order to increase the efficiency, methods are to be undertaken to match the source and load properly. One such method is the Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT). Incremental Conductance (IC) method is used to track the maximum power point

Keywords: micro-inverter, tapped-inductor, solar PV, MPPT