1
Development of High Gain and Efficiency
Photovoltaic System Using Multilevel Boost
Converter Topology
Mahrous E. Ahmed, IEEE Member, Mostafa Mousa, IEEE student member, and
Mohamed Orabi, IEEE Senior Member
APEARC, South Valley University, Aswan City, Egypt
orabi@ieee.org
Abstract--: This paper presents the analysis and operation This paper introduces the multilevel boost converter
of a PV system using multilevel dc-dc topology as a high (MLBC) as a high gin dc-dc converter employing MPPT
gain converter in addition to applying Maximum Power technique to feed the conventional inverter for grid
Point Tracking (MPPT) technique. The multi-level boost
applications. The developed system has the advantage of
converter parameters have been adjusted to achieve the
high efficiency and high gain target results. In addition, a high efficiency through applying MPPT and designing
full bridge inverter is used to connect the generated power the MLBC parameters. The paper is organized in the
from the PV into the grid. The total system has been following way. Section II presents modeling of the cell of
analyzed and then simulated using MATLAB to prove the the PV. Section III presents the multilevel dc-dc
idea. Then, a set-up of experimental results has been converter topology used, its switching signals, and the
provided to validate the simulation results using FPGA
MPPT control method. Section IV will present the
control.
power inverter topology capable of synthesizing
Index Terms-- Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT), multilevel PWM waveforms across the load, switching
photovoltaic (PV), multilevel boost converter (MLBC). technique suitable for this multilevel topology, and the
control signals for the inverter switches. Serving as a
I. INTRODUCTION reference for inverter validity, section V gives
In a world where environmental protection and energy MATLAB simulated results which are used for
conservation are growing concerns, the development of verifying the performance of the design procedure of
PV technologies have taken on an accelerated pace to the PV system whose analysis is presented in
fulfill these needs [1] - [2]. PV can be found in many Section II, III, and III. Section VI presents the
applications such as power stations, building, transport, hardware implementation. Last, Section VI summarizes
standalone devices, rural electrification, and solar the conclusion presented in the paper.
roadway.
Photovoltaic (PV) system has been recently become an II. ACCURATE PV CELL MODEL
essential target overall the world. However, most of The simplest equivalent circuit of a solar cell is a
current PV systems are based on string structure where current source in parallel with a diode. The output of
several modules are connected in series to increase the the current source is directly proportional to the light
input voltage that can be boosted for grid connection falling on the cell. The diode determines the I-V
applications. Unfortunately this configuration of characteristics of the cell. Increasing accuracy can be
module connection is very sensitive for environmental introduced to the model by adding in turn:
conditions such as shading phenomena. In case of Temperature dependence of the diode saturation current
any partial shaded strikes any part of any module, the Io .
system removes the whole chain from operation Temperature dependence of the photo current IL.
however some modules can run if they are Series resistance Rs, which gives a more accurate shape
between the maximum power point and the open circuit
independently works, so the system generates a lower
voltage.
power. Therefore, it becomes preferable to attach a
Shunt resistance Rp in parallel with the diode.
dc-dc converter into each module using a high
Either allowing the diode quality factor n to become a
voltage gain converter topology to increase the system variable parameter (instead of being fixed at either 1 or 2)
efficiency under any environmental issues. There are few or introducing two parallel diodes (one with A =1, and
techniques have been developed recently for high gain another one with A =2) with independently set saturation
dc-dc converter [3] [5]. The main differences are the currents [6]. For this research work, a model of moderate
applicable used duty cycle. One of these topologies is the complexity was used. The model includes temperature
multi-level converter developed in [3]. dependence of the photo-current IL and the saturation
current of the diode Io. A series resistance Rs was
1
This work was supported by Egyptian Fund STDF projects No. included, but not a shunt resistance. A single shunt diode
346.
Power [W]
e 1 (1) 3
0
0 5 10 15 20
(3) Voltage [V]
!
'
Fig. 2: The MATLAB model 6 curves for various insulations.
insulations
$
" %& e ' (4)
'
90
Where the cell parameters are Rs = series resistance of the 80
sun=700W/m2
sun=800W/m2
module, Io = the diode saturation current
current, T = cell 70 sun=900W/m2
sun=1000W/m2
temperature (K), Isc = cell short circuit current (A)
(A), IL = 60
Power [W]
50
cell photo-current (A), I = cell current (A) (A), V= cell 40
voltage (V), ( 1.6 10,- (Coulomb),, and 3 1.38 30
10,./ (J/K). 20
10
0
0 5 10 15 20
Voltage [V]
899
capacitor C2, the diode D3 turns off and the diode D5 To make the solar cell to work in maximum power
turns on so the solar cell, inductor and capacitors C2 and point under a given temperature and irradiance it should
C4 will charging capacitors C5, C3, C1 until the voltage on controlled under maximum power point tracking control.
it equal to the summation of the voltage on the solar cell,
MPPT controls have been proposed and implemented for
inductor and capacitors C2+C4.
extracting the maximum power from the PV cell. One of
these algorithms is called perturb and observe (P&O)
algorithm which has been employed in this work. The
maximum power point tracking is executing by
employing perturb and observe technique [7] [8].
TABLE II
DESIGN SPECIFICATION OF THE MLBC
Specification
Input Voltage (Vs) 20-30V
Output Voltage (Vo) 250-320V (DC)
Switching Frequency (f) 10KHz
Duty Cycle (D) 0.4< D< 0.8
Inductance L1 10 mH
Fig. 4: Multi-level boost converter Capacitor (all capacitor used are equal) 220 F
Switch type MOSFET-16N60
Fast recovery Diode FR605
The transfer function of the conventional boost converter
is
689: ; (5) The simplest control in a perturb and observe is used in
,<
this paper. The control of the perturb and observe was
But in the multilevel converter the transfer function of it designed according to equation (11).
is
=; D (t)= D(t-1)-sign(V)*sign(p)*perturb (11)
689: (6)
,<
900
The response of the control to reach the maximum power
when the insulation changed is very fast it is smaller than
0.03s as we mentioned before.
40
30
extracting maximum power from the solar cell, then take
20
the value of the maximum power and divide it with grid
10 voltage to have a reference current and to ensure that the
0 current injected to the grid is in phase with grid voltage.
-10
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06 0.07 0.08 0.09 0.1
The reference current is compared with the current
Voltage [V]
injected to the grid to have the error, and then the
Fig. 6: The output power when there is a change in the insulation from
1000W/m2 to 800W/m2
instantaneous current error is fed to a PI controller. PI
control tries to reduce this error by increasing or
Figure 6 shows the output power of the solar cell when decreasing the modulation index. The result is compared
the insulation is changed from 1000 W/m2 to 800 W/m2. with a triangular carrier signal to have a PWM signals for
At 1000 W/m2 the output power is equal to 85 W and the the inverter switches. Figure 8 show the grid voltage and
when the insulation is equal to 800 W/m2 the output the injected current to the grid. The grid voltage and the
power is equal to 73 W this is the maximum power of the injected current are in phase and the power factor of the
solar cell. system is equal to one.
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Besides this, all switches on the inverter are IRFP32N50
and the inductor that is used as a filter is 10mH and an
AC capacitor is 1 F. IC that are used in the gate drives
are hexa inverter SN74HC04N, Optocoupler CNY75A,
transformer with ratio 7:25 and four fast recovery diodes
for one gate drive. The program that is used in the FPGA
is shown in Fig. 9; it is designed by using schematic in
Xilinx program. The output result is shown in Fig. 10 is
Fig. 8: The grid voltage and the injected current under a step change at the output voltage of the solar cell and the input current to
0.043 Sec, [100V/dev], [2A/dev]. the multi level boost converter and the duty cycle
generated from the FPGA and the output power of the
solar cell.
V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS The output power is equal to 77.44 W this is the
To validate the proposed control, a primary experimental maximum power in this time at insulation and
prototype of the MLBC and full bridge inverter has been temperature condition.
built and experimentally tested. The experimental work Figure 11 shows the experimental set up. There are two
was conducted using an open-loop controller. A FPGA switches operate at the low switching (in this case the
was used to generate switching pulses. In the multilevel switching is 50 Hz), and the other operate at high
boost converter all capacitors are 220F- 400V aluminum switching. In this experimental 5 kHz is used to make the
electrolytic and inductor has a value of 10mH and the high switching to operate because maximum frequency of
MOSFETs that are used is IRF16N60. the optocoupler of the gate drive is operate at the 10 kHz.
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converter the analog signal to digital signal because ACKNOWLEDGMENT
FPGA cannot read analog signal. The authors gratefully thank the ministry of Science, Egyptian
science and technology development funds (STDF project No
346), for supporting this project.
REFERENCES
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Fig. 13: complete system set up includes MLBC, H-bridge inverter,
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VI. CONCLUSION maximum power point tracking for grid-connected
photovoltaic systems, in Proc. Eighth Int. Conf. Power
This paper presents the analysis and the operation of a Electronics Variable Speed Drives, 2000, pp. 124129.
high efficiency system using a high voltage gain
multilevel topology. First, an accurate PV module
taking into consideration the shaded effects has been
developed. From this model, it has been cleared the
advantage of using AC modules which require a high
voltage gain converters. Therefore, multilevel topologies
have been proposed to be used in PV system. MPPT
control has been employed to extract the maximum
power from the cell. A PWM control scheme has been
employed for the inverter to connect the PV system with
the grid at unity power factor. The simulation and
experimental results provided in the paper has validated
the proposed system. Additionally, some experimental
results have been provided to validate the system results.
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