A Solar Power Generation System With A Seven-Level Inverter

Abstract

This paper proposes a new solar power generation system, which is composed of a dc/dc power converter and a new seven-level inverter. The dc/dc power converter integrates a dc–dc boost converter and a transformer to convert the output voltage of the solar cell array into two independent voltage sources with multiple relationships. This new seven-level inverter is configured using a capacitor selection circuit and a full-bridge power converter, connected in cascade. The capacitor selection circuit converts the two output voltage sources of dc–dc power converter into a three-level dc voltage, and the full-bridge power converter further converts this three-level dc voltage into a seven-level ac voltage. In this way, the proposed solar power generation system generates a sinusoidal output current that is in phase with the utility voltage and is fed in to the utility. The salient features of the proposed seven-level inverter are that only six power electronic switches are used, and only one power electronic switch is switched at high frequency at any time.A prototype is developed and tested to verify the performance of this proposed solar power generation system.