Ultrawide Voltage Gain Range Microconverter for Integration of Silicon and Thin-Film Photovoltaic Modules in DC Microgrids

Abstract

The article overviews residential and building-integrated photovoltaic (PV) module types. It demonstrates that existing dc–dc converter technologies do not allow building a universal interface microconverter because of wide dispersion of the parameters. However, the absence of universal microconverters limits the widespread adoption of PV modules despite great benefits for energy-efficient buildings and restrains the deployment of residential PV-based dc microgrids. Based on the design requirements formulated, a new approach utilizing a boost half-bridge front-end inverter and a three-mode reconfigurable rectifier (RR) is proposed. The article describes the operating principle of the derived converter. The RR allows keeping the duty cycle of the input side within a favorable range of acceptable efficiencies. An experimental prototype rated for 360\xa0W was assembled and tested in the entire operating range. The experimental results prove the ultrawide input voltage range of over 1:20 and demonstrate the capability of the proposed concept to interface different PV module types while enabling their shade-tolerant operation.