A Review of GaN based Inverters for Integration of Renewables with the Grid

Abstract

Increasing demand for electricity urges rapid development of renewable energy integration methods. The main candidates in this area, photovoltaics and wind energy systems enforce crucial requirements like high efficiency, low losses, high power density, fast switching and reliable semiconductor devices in order to facilitate enhanced system performance. With the advent of GaN based devices and the increasing trend of their usage, incorporation of such Wide-Band Gap devices has proven to be extremely advantageous. Combining these ideas, GaN based inverters for renewable energy integration applications has been a hot research topic. However, the collection of all possible topologies with necessary performance criteria evaluated is not readily accessible. This paper provides a review of GaN based inverters with possible topologies and applications, along with the evaluation of key performance metrics specifically for renewable energy integration.