A Novel Cubic Boost Converter With Continuous Source Current for PV Applications

Abstract

A converter with high voltage gain is generally necessary for interfacing the photovoltaic (PV) systems with grid. However, more semiconductor components are needed to obtain a higher voltage gain, which results in increased losses. This brief proposes a novel non-isolated cubic boost (NNICB) DC-DC converter for high-voltage PV applications with a wide voltage gain at a lower duty ratio. Compared to traditional high-gain DC-DC converter, the NNICB converter counters the drawbacks of increased component count and high voltage stress. The NNICB DC-DC converter has a continuous source current for PV applications with low-voltage stress across the diodes and switches. A detailed steady-state analysis of the NNICB topology is carried out for the ideal and non-ideal models, and their corresponding voltage gain equations are computed. Furthermore, the analysis is performed using MATLAB/Simulink and is validated using a 230 W laboratory prototype. The experimental results show that the efficiency of the proposed NNICB topology is 94.42% with a voltage gain of 10.5 at 45% duty ratio. This proves the superior performance of the proposed novel converter in comparison with the existing topologies.