A Transformerless Photovoltaic Inverter With Dedicated MPPT for Grid Application

The objective of reducing the size and cost of the grid-connected photovoltaic system has led to advancements in the field of transformerless grid-connected inverters and gained high popularity in recent years. However, in such systems, the major limitation lies in realizing maximum power from individual modules. In this regard, this paper proposes a modular transformerless grid-connected photovoltaic multilevel inverter that realizes the individual maximum power point (MPP) of each module under different operating scenarios. The presented configuration is simple and modular, providing flexibility to increase the number of inputs with less component count. A single-phase synchronous reference frame PI (SRF-PI) controller has been designed and realized for the proposed system. The systematic procedure for designing the controller has been detailed. The converter and controller allow the system to realize individual MPP of the modules and simultaneously achieve the load demand maintaining the desired grid voltage. This has been verified under different operating scenarios in the MATLAB/Simulink environment. The same has been validated on a 300W laboratory prototype under source and load intermittencies. The proposed configuration has been compared with the similar works reported in the literature and it has been observed that it employs only 18 components. Also, the efficiency of the converter has been observed in the range of 89-95%. Further, the common-mode voltage and the leakage current have been measured to verify their suitability for grid-connected systems as per German VDE 0126-1-1 standards.

Automated summary

This paper proposes a modular transformerless grid-connected photovoltaic multilevel inverter that can achieve the individual maximum power point of each module under different operating scenarios. It utilizes a single-phase synchronous reference frame PI controller to control the load demand and grid voltage. The proposed configuration employs only 18 components and has an efficiency range of 89-95%. It also complies with the German VDE 0126-1-1 standards regarding common-mode voltage and leakage current suitability for grid-connected systems.