A Comparative Performance Study of an Interleaved Boost Converter Using Commercial Si and SiC Diodes for PV Applications

This paper reports a 100-W class transportable photovoltaic (PV) power generation system built with SiC power devices. Conventionally, studies on SiC power converters have mostly focused on multi-kW applications. In this paper, we have verified the feasibility of the SiC power devices for sub-kW PV power generation systems. The developed PV power generation system consisted of a spherical Si solar cell module, a 150-W SiC PV-inverter unit with maximum power point tracking (MPPT) function, and a 12-V Li-ion battery. The total weight of the system was just 4.3 kg. Conversion efficiencies of the MPPT charge controller and the direct current-alternating current converter reached 98.0% and 88.4%, respectively. The developed system exhibited stable output power characteristics, even when the weather conditions were fluctuated. These compactness, high efficiencies, and excellent stability clearly indicated the feasibility of SiC power devices even for sub-kW class PV power generation systems. This kind of system would be available for the applications where compactness and transportability are of tremendous importance.

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“…Recently, [15,16] reported all SiC inverters. Some authors [17][18][19] also gave a comparative study of Si-and SiC-based power converters. Ref.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Transportable Photovoltaic Power Generation System Utilizing a SiC Inverter and Spherical Si Solar Cells

et al. 2017

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“…Where a simple boost converter generally requires only one diode, one switching element and one inductor, the latter in this configuration usually becomes bulky, heavy and expensive due to the low switching frequency operation of the Si IGBT in order to maintain a reasonable small input current ripple. Interleaved boost converter (IBC) topologies can therefore be an attractive alternative due to the reduced input current ripple [2] which consequently improves the power quality and power-point tracking (MPPT) performance [3] with the trade-offs against other criteria such as additional components, increased complexity or unequal load sharing [4]. To furthermore improve the performance of the preregulator stage of the PV system, previous work has investigated the use of new semiconductor devices made of silicon carbide (SiC) material.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To furthermore improve the performance of the preregulator stage of the PV system, previous work has investigated the use of new semiconductor devices made of silicon carbide (SiC) material. With the commercialization of SiC diodes in 2001 [5], which have the particular benefit of having zero reverse recovery current, the positive impact of the new kind of semiconductor devices on switching loss reduction and reduced electromagnetic interference (EMI) has been reported for instance in [6], [7] and efficiency improvements of up to 0.8 % in a boost converter with SiC diodes were achieved in [3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of a state of the art Si IGBT and next generation fast switching devices in a 4 kW boost converter

Anthon

Zhang

Andersen

2015

2015 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition (ECCE)

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“…Many multiple circuits replacing Si diode with SiC diode for more improved performance is introduced in the recent studies [12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. The behavior of SiC diode in the circuit-level is analyzed by a thorough characterization [19][20][21]. The neutral-point-clamped (NPC) inverter using SiC diode as the clamp diode has already come into the market.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Partial O-state Clamping PWM Method for Three-Level NPC Inverter with a SiC Clamp Diode

Ku¹,

Kim²,

Hyun³

2015

Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology

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-This paper presents the reverse recovery characteristic according to the change of switching states when Si diode and SiC diode are used as clamp diode and proposes a method to minimize the switching loss containing the reverse recovery loss in the neutral-point-clamped inverter at low modulation index. The previous papers introduce many multiple circuits replacing Si diode with SiC diode to reduce the switching loss. In the neutral-point-clamped inverter, the switching loss can be also reduced by replacing device in the clamp diode. However, the switching loss in IGBT is large and the reduced switching loss cannot be still neglected. It is expected that the reverse recovery effect can be infrequent and the switching loss can be considerably reduced by the proposed method. Therefore, it is also possible to operate the inverter at the higher frequency with the better system efficiency and reduce the volume, weight and cost of filters and heatsink. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by numerical analysis and experiment results.

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A Comparative Performance Study of an Interleaved Boost Converter Using Commercial Si and SiC Diodes for PV Applications

Cited by 113 publications

References 27 publications

A Transportable Photovoltaic Power Generation System Utilizing a SiC Inverter and Spherical Si Solar Cells

A Transportable Photovoltaic Power Generation System Utilizing a SiC Inverter and Spherical Si Solar Cells

Comparison of a state of the art Si IGBT and next generation fast switching devices in a 4 kW boost converter

Partial O-state Clamping PWM Method for Three-Level NPC Inverter with a SiC Clamp Diode

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