A Novel Flyback-type Utility Interactive Inverter for AC Module Systems

In recent years, natural energy has attracted growing interest because of environmental concerns. Many studies have been focused on photovoltaic power generation systems because of the ease of use in urban areas. On the conventional system, many photovoltaic modules (PV modules) are connected in series in order to obtain the sufficient DC-bus voltage for generating AC output voltage at the inverter circuit. However, the total generation power on the PV modules sometimes decreases remarkably because of the shadows that partially cover the PV modules. In order to overcome this drawback, an AC module strategy is proposed. On this system, a small power DC-AC utility interactive inverter is mounted on each PV module individually and the inverter operates so as to generate the maximum power from the corresponding PV module. This paper presents a novel flyback-type utility interactive inverter circuit suitable for AC module systems. The feature of the proposed system are, (1) small in volume and light in weight, (2) stable AC current injection, (3) enabling a small DC capacitor. The effectiveness of the proposed system is clarified through the simulation and the experiments.