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Optimization and design of photovoltaic micro-inverter

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Date Issued:
2013
Abstract/Description:
To relieve energy shortage and environmental pollution issues, renewable energy, especially PV energy has developed rapidly in the last decade. The micro-inverter systems, with advantages in dedicated PV power harvest, flexible system size, simple installation, and enhanced safety characteristics are the future development trend of the PV power generation systems. The double-stage structure which can realize high efficiency with nice regulated sinusoidal waveforms is the mainstream for the micro-inverter.This thesis studied a double stage micro-inverter system. Considering the intermittent nature of PV power, a PFC was analyzed to provide additional electrical power to the system. When the solar power is less than the load required, PFC can drag power from the utility grid.In the double stage micro-inverter, the DC/DC stage was realized by a LLC converter, which could realize soft switching automatically under frequency modulation. However it has a complicated relationship between voltage gain and load. Thus conventional variable step P(&)O MPPT techniques for PWM converter were no longer suitable for the LLC converter. To solve this problem, a novel MPPT was proposed to track MPP efficiently. Simulation and experimental results verified the effectiveness of the proposed MPPT.The DC/AC stage of the micro-inverter was realized by a BCM inverter. With duty cycle and frequency modulation, ZVS was achieved through controlling the inductor current bi-directional in every switching cycle. This technique required no additional resonant components and could be employed for low power applications on conventional full-bridge and half-bridge inverter topologies. Three different current mode control schemes were derived from the basic theory of the proposed technique. They were referred to as Boundary Current Mode (BCM), Variable Hysteresis Current Mode (VHCM), and Constant Hysteresis Current Mode (CHCM) individually in this paper with their advantages and disadvantages analyzed in detail. Simulation and experimental results demonstrated the feasibilities of the proposed soft-switching technique with the digital control schemes.The PFC converter was applied by a single stage biflyback topology, which combined the advantages of single stage PFC and flyback topology together, with further advantages in low intermediate bus voltage and current stresses. A digital controller without current sampling requirement was proposed based on the specific topology. To reduce the voltage spike caused by the leakage inductor, a novel snubber cell combining soft switching technique with snubber technique together was proposed. Simulation and experimental waveforms illustrated the same as characteristics as the theoretical analysis.In summary, the dissertation analyzed each power stage of photovoltaic micro-inverter system from efficiency and effectiveness optimization perspectives. Moreover their advantages were compared carefully with existed topologies and control techniques. Simulation and experiment results were provided to support the theoretical analysis.
Title: Optimization and design of photovoltaic micro-inverter.
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Name(s): Zhang, Qian, Author
Batarseh, Issa, Committee Chair
Shen, Zheng, Committee CoChair
Wu, Xinzhang, Committee Member
Lotfifard, Saeed, Committee Member
Kutkut, Nasser, Committee Member
University of Central Florida, Degree Grantor
Type of Resource: text
Date Issued: 2013
Publisher: University of Central Florida
Language(s): English
Abstract/Description: To relieve energy shortage and environmental pollution issues, renewable energy, especially PV energy has developed rapidly in the last decade. The micro-inverter systems, with advantages in dedicated PV power harvest, flexible system size, simple installation, and enhanced safety characteristics are the future development trend of the PV power generation systems. The double-stage structure which can realize high efficiency with nice regulated sinusoidal waveforms is the mainstream for the micro-inverter.This thesis studied a double stage micro-inverter system. Considering the intermittent nature of PV power, a PFC was analyzed to provide additional electrical power to the system. When the solar power is less than the load required, PFC can drag power from the utility grid.In the double stage micro-inverter, the DC/DC stage was realized by a LLC converter, which could realize soft switching automatically under frequency modulation. However it has a complicated relationship between voltage gain and load. Thus conventional variable step P(&)O MPPT techniques for PWM converter were no longer suitable for the LLC converter. To solve this problem, a novel MPPT was proposed to track MPP efficiently. Simulation and experimental results verified the effectiveness of the proposed MPPT.The DC/AC stage of the micro-inverter was realized by a BCM inverter. With duty cycle and frequency modulation, ZVS was achieved through controlling the inductor current bi-directional in every switching cycle. This technique required no additional resonant components and could be employed for low power applications on conventional full-bridge and half-bridge inverter topologies. Three different current mode control schemes were derived from the basic theory of the proposed technique. They were referred to as Boundary Current Mode (BCM), Variable Hysteresis Current Mode (VHCM), and Constant Hysteresis Current Mode (CHCM) individually in this paper with their advantages and disadvantages analyzed in detail. Simulation and experimental results demonstrated the feasibilities of the proposed soft-switching technique with the digital control schemes.The PFC converter was applied by a single stage biflyback topology, which combined the advantages of single stage PFC and flyback topology together, with further advantages in low intermediate bus voltage and current stresses. A digital controller without current sampling requirement was proposed based on the specific topology. To reduce the voltage spike caused by the leakage inductor, a novel snubber cell combining soft switching technique with snubber technique together was proposed. Simulation and experimental waveforms illustrated the same as characteristics as the theoretical analysis.In summary, the dissertation analyzed each power stage of photovoltaic micro-inverter system from efficiency and effectiveness optimization perspectives. Moreover their advantages were compared carefully with existed topologies and control techniques. Simulation and experiment results were provided to support the theoretical analysis.
Identifier: CFE0005286 (IID), ucf:50540 (fedora)
Note(s): 2013-08-01
Ph.D.
Engineering and Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Doctoral
This record was generated from author submitted information.
Subject(s): Photovoltaic system -- micro-inverter -- soft switching -- digital control
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005286
Restrictions on Access: public 2014-02-15
Host Institution: UCF

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