Single-Switch Single-Magnetic PWM Converter Integrating Voltage Equalizer for Partially Shaded Photovoltaic Modules in Standalone Applications

To prevent partial-shading issues in photovoltaic (PV) systems, various kinds of voltage equalizers that virtually unify characteristics of shaded and unshaded modules have been proposed. Although PV string utilization can be dramatically improved, PV systems tend to be complex and costly because, i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inIEEE transactions on power electronics Vol. 33; no. 2; pp. 1259 - 1270
Main Authors Uno, Masatoshi, Kukita, Akio
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York IEEE 01.02.2018
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subjects
Buck converters
Electric potential
Electronics
Equalizers
Inductors
Integrated converter
Modules
partial shading
Photovoltaic cells
Pulse duration
Pulse duration modulation
Pulse width modulation
pulse width modulation (PWM) buck converter
Pulse width modulation converters
series-resonant voltage multiplier (SRVM)
Shading
Solar cells
Switches
Switching circuits
Topology
voltage equalizer
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Summary:To prevent partial-shading issues in photovoltaic (PV) systems, various kinds of voltage equalizers that virtually unify characteristics of shaded and unshaded modules have been proposed. Although PV string utilization can be dramatically improved, PV systems tend to be complex and costly because, in addition to the main converter for string control, voltage equalizers are separately necessary. This paper proposes the single-switch single-magnetic pulse width modulation (PWM) converter integrating the voltage equalizer using the series-resonant voltage multiplier (SRVM) for standalone PV systems. By utilizing a square wave voltage generated across a filter inductor in a PWM buck converter for driving the SRVM, the main PWM converter and voltage equalizer can be integrated into a single unit with reducing the total switch and magnetic component counts, achieving not only system-level but also circuit-level simplifications. The experimental test using the prototype for three PV modules connected in series was performed emulating a partial-shading condition. The integrated converter effectively precluded the partial-shading issues and significantly improved the power available at a load, demonstrating its efficacy.
ISSN:0885-8993
1941-0107
DOI:10.1109/TPEL.2017.2678526