• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.1277-1287
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• 2016

This study proposes a novel isolated high step-up galvanic converter, which is suitable for renewable energy applications and integrates a boost converter, a coupled inductor, a charge pump capacitor cell, and an LC snubber. The proposed converter comprises an input inductor and thus features a continuous input current, which extends the life of the renewable energy chip. Furthermore, the proposed converter can achieve a high voltage gain without an extremely large duty cycle and turn ratio of the coupled inductor by using the charge pump capacitor cell. The leakage inductance energy can be recycled to the output capacitor of the boost converter via the LC snubber and then transferred to the output load. As a result, the voltage spike can be suppressed to a low voltage level. Finally, the basic operating principles and experimental results are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed converter.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1629-1638
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• 2016

Differential power processing (DPP) systems are among the most effective architectures for photovoltaic (PV) power systems because they are highly efficient as a result of their distributed local maximum power point tracking ability, which allows the fractional processing of the total generated power. However, DPP systems require a high-efficiency, high step-up/down bidirectional converter with broad operating ranges and galvanic isolation. This study proposes a single, magnetic, high-efficiency, high step-up/down bidirectional DC-DC converter. The proposed converter is composed of a bidirectional flyback and a bidirectional isolated switched-capacitor cell, which are competitively cheap. The output terminals of the flyback converter and switched-capacitor cell are connected in series to obtain the voltage step-up. In the reverse power flow, the converter reciprocally operates with high efficiency across a broad operating range because it uses hard switching instead of soft switching. The proposed topology achieves a genuine on-off interleaved energy transfer at the transformer core and windings, thus providing an excellent utilization ratio. The dynamic characteristics of the converter are analyzed for the controller design. Finally, a 240 W hardware prototype is constructed to demonstrate the operation of the bidirectional converter under a current feedback control loop. To improve the efficiency of a PV system, the maximum power point tracking method is applied to the proposed converter.