Analysis of a Soft Switching High Voltage Gain DC/DC Boost Converter for PV Systems

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of a non-isolated soft switching high voltage gain DC/DC boost converter by using a coupling inductor, voltage quadrupler and active clamp circuit for Photovoltaic (PV) systems. The main advantage of this converter, coupled inductor with voltage quadrupler circuit is used to decrease voltage stress in semiconductor switches and providing high voltage gain. Therefore, low voltage valued and low on-resistance MOSFETs can be used to decrease on-state losses. The reverse recovery and high frequency turn off losses is reduced for achieving Zero-Current Switching (ZCS) in all diodes. Voltage spike caused by leakage inductance of the coupled inductor is minimized by means of the active clamp circuit. Thus, Zero-Voltage Switching (ZVS) turn on of all MOSFET switches are achieved. The Perturb and Observe (P&O) method is utilized in this study to obtain maximum power from the PV system. In order to show the effectiveness of the converter, PSIM simulations are realized under various irradiance cases. The conversion efficiency is obtained about 95.97% at full load from the simulation results.