• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.766-778
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• 2013

The depletion of natural resources and renewable energy sources, such as photovoltaic (PV) energy, has been highlighted for global energy solution. The PV power control unit in the PV power-generation technology requires a high step-up DC-DC converter. The conventional step-up DC-DC converter has low efficiency and limited step-up ratio. To overcome these problems, a novel high step-up DC-DC converter using an isolated switched capacitor cell is proposed. The step-up converter uses the proposed transformer and employs the switched-capacitor cell to enable integration with the boost inductor. The output of the boost converter and isolated switched-capacitor cell are connected in series to obtain high step-up with low turn-on ratio. A hardware prototype with 30 V to 40 V input voltage and 340 V output voltage is implemented to verify the performance of the proposed converter. As an extended version, another novel high step-up isolated switched-capacitor single-ended DC-DC converter integrated with a tapped-inductor (TI) boost converter is proposed. The TI boost converter and isolated-switched-capacitor outputs are connected in series to achieve high step-up. All magnetic components are integrated in a single magnetic core to lower costs. A prototype hardware with 20 V to 40 V input voltage, 340 V output voltage, and 100 W output power is implemented to verify the performance of the proposed converter.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.1468-1479
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• 2015

Renewable energy resources such as wind and photovoltaic power generation systems demand a high step-up DC-DC converters to convert the low voltage to commercial grid voltage. However, the high step-up converter using a transformer has limitations of high voltage stresses of switches and diodes when the transformer winding ratio increases. Accordingly, conventional studies have been applied to series-connect multioutput converters such as forward-flyback and switched-capacitor flyback to reduce the transformer winding ratio. This paper proposes new single-ended converter topologies of an isolation type and a non-isolation type to improve power efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and output ripple. The first proposal is an isolation-type charge-pump switched-capacitor flyback converter that includes an extreme-ratio isolation switched-capacitor cell with a chargepump circuit. It reduces the transformer winding number and the output ripple, and further improves power efficiency without any cost increase. The next proposal is a non-isolation charge-pump switched-capacitor-flyback tapped-inductor boost converter, which adds a charge-pump-connected flyback circuit to the conventional switched-capacitor boost converter to improve the power efficiency and to reduce the efficiency degradation from the input variation. In this paper, the operation principle of the proposed scheme is presented with the experimental results of the 100 W DC-DC converter for verification.

• 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.