An integrated multiport Dc–Dc converter for renewable energy applications

Abstract

As conventional energy sources are steadily depleting n nature due to human activities, renewable energy sources are the need of the hour. Renewable energy source delivers environmental friendly, sustainable power. Due to the intermittent nature of these source, the power produced cannot be used directly by the consumers. So the output power is conditional to meet the grid requirements by using semiconductor devices. In the present system, wind energy output is coupled with back to back power converter and solar energy output with dc to ac converter. The output from the two systems are separately interfaced with the power grid. This has the disadvantages of higher components count, increased cost and inefficient power flow management. The proposed system consists of four ports among which one port is for solar point input, one port is for wind energy input, one bi-directional battery port and an isolated load port. Zero voltage switching is adopted for all main switches in the converter. The integrated four port converter has the advantages of interfacing two sources and controlling them with low cost, compact structure that allow and intelligent power flow management between the household users, the electric distribution grid and the distributed generation units. This converter provides the facilities to combine two or more generation sources. Solar power and wind power are given as input to the two input ports of the converter. The converters use four main switches for this conversion. The output voltage will be a DC voltage. This voltage can be used to derive any DC load or can be converted to AC voltage using inverter to drive an AC load.