A novel transformerless switched-capacitor-based boost inverter topology for PV applications

This paper presents a novel approach to the practical application of boosting multilevel inverters (MLIs) in photovoltaics (PV) and electric vehicles (EVs) with a low-voltage DC input. Conventionally, PV/EV inverters require two stages (boosting and inversion), leading to issues such as high cost, large part count, high voltage stress, leakage current, large size, and dv/dt stress on devices. This research study introduces a new five-level switched capacitor (SC) converter that has fewer components as well as convincing self-voltage balancing and boosting without incorporating a closed-loop algorithm and uses only a single DC input. Additionally, a comparison with contemporary MLIs is carried out, showing the merits of the designed inverter in terms of a low device count, voltage boosting, self-balancing, dv/dt stress reduction, and efficiency. The switches in the proposed topology(PT) have uniform peak inverse voltage stress that is equivalent to the DC supply, making it an appealing option as a modular solution. The viability and transient performance of the work are verified through both simulation and experimental methods. The PT also exhibits a constant total common mode voltage that can greatly reduce the leakage currents in photovoltaic-based power generation systems. Five-level laboratory hardware is implemented to demonstrate the operation of the circuit. The PT achieve an efficiency of 96.6% at 200 W. The PT captures voltage and current THD of 30.6% and 4.8%, respectively. Both simulation and experimental results confirm the feasibility of the suggested work. Overall, this study promotes SDG 7 by facilitating reliable and efficient power conversion for sustainable photovoltaic systems.