An advanced photovoltaic system based on the fifteen-Level PUC inverter

Abstract

In this paper, authors propose an advanced photovoltaic system based on the 15-Level PUC inverter. The proposed inverter has the advantage to operate with a single PV array while generating fifteen voltage levels. Even it is constituted from only eight switches and two capacitors; it can nevertheless offer a fifteen-level output voltage. In order to extract the maximum power from the PV panel, authors makes use of the incremental conduction MPPT technique. Associated to the proposed multiband hysteresis control technique, the load voltage and current are nearly sinusoidal. With such waveforms, there is no need of additional investment in any filters. This also increases the system energetic efficiency. Authors' choice has been focused on the Canadian Solar 220W CS5P-220P Panel which is among the top ranked in PVUSA Test Conditions (PTC) ratings established by the California Energy Commission. The proposed concept was verified by simulations performed in the Matlab Simulink and SimPowerSystem environments.