Experimental verification of a module-integrated isolated coupled-inductor-based DC-DC boost-converter-fed micro-inverter

In this paper, a photovoltaic module-integrated coupled inductor-based high-step-up DC-DC converter-fed isolated dc/ac converter is presented. The coupled-inductor-based DC-DC converters offer more advantages over the buck, boost, and cuk converters used in the photovoltaic (PV)-integrated applications. The proposed grid-integrated solar micro-inverter based on the isolated high-step-up DC-DC converter extracts the maximum power generated on the solar panel and it transfers the extracted power to the ac utility system through a voltage source inverter. High-step-up voltage gain, high maximum power point tracking accuracy, and high-energy-conversion efficiency can be obtained with the proposed topology. The design considerations and principle of operation of the proposed isolated high-step-up DC-DC boost-converter-fed micro-inverter are analyzed and discussed. The MATLAB/Simulink simulation and experimental results of the proposed micro-inverter have been presented to validate the performance of the isolated micro-inverter. Copyright © 2016 by ASTM International.