A new generalized cross-connected switched capacitor multilevel inverter topology with high output voltage gain for single phase solar PV unit

Abstract

Switched capacitor multilevel inverters are gaining much attention these days due to their merits like voltage boosting and voltage balancing characteristics. A Cross Connected Switched Capacitor Multilevel Inverter (C2SC-MLI) topology is proposed in this work. It can synthesize thirteen levels in the terminal voltage waveform and with a voltage boost ratio of 1:3. The topology is extendable by adding additional “n” modules in series. The number of levels (NLevel) and the voltage gain can be increased up to 4i+9 and 1:(i+2) respectively by connecting ‘i’ such ‘n’ modules. The topology also has inherent voltage balancing ability. To prove the advantage of proposed topology it is compared with recent switched capacitor multilevel inverter topologies and conventional multilevel inverter topologies in terms of number of power electronic components required, cost and voltage gain. The performance of proposed topology is validated using simulation in MATLAB and with an experimental prototype rated 0.1 kW fed by a solar PV emulator under steady state and dynamic loading conditions.