Development of a Seven-Level Inverter with Minimized Switch Count for Grid-Integrated Solar PV Applications

This paper introduces a straightforward 7-level inverter sinusoidal controlled using pulse-width modulation for solar photovoltaic (PV) applications and contemporary inverter manufacturing. The design emphasizes a minimized count of power components, achieving reduced Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) in the output voltage through the integration of compact passive elements to filter the output voltage/current waveforms. In addition, the proposed inverter mitigates the complex control strategy that simplifies the required controller specifications as illustrated in the operation principles and switching strategy. Also, comparative study is enriched to compare the proposed 7-LI with its counterpart ones based-on the required number of elements as well as the number of components for required output-voltage levels, as an effective parameter for inverter selection. The proposed inverter structure has been verified through a grid-tied solar PV system using MATLAB/Simulink for high power-quality grid-integrated PV generation systems.