A single-phase current source solar inverter with constant instantaneous power, improved reliability, and reduced-size DC-link filter

This dissertation presents a novel current source converter topology that is primarily intended for single-phase photovoltaic (PV) applications. In comparison with the existing PV inverter technology, the salient features of the proposed topology are: a) the low frequency (double of line frequency) ripple that is common to single-phase inverters is greatly reduced; b) the absence of low frequency ripple enables significantly reduced size pass components to achieve necessary DC-link stiffness and c) improved maximum power point tracking (MPPT) performance is readily achieved due to the tightened current ripple even with reduced-size passive components. The proposed topology does not utilize any electrolytic capacitors. Instead an inductor is used as the DC-link filter and reliable AC film capacitors are utilized for the filter and auxiliary capacitor. The proposed topology has a life expectancy on par with PV panels. The proposed modulation technique can be used for any current source inverter where an unbalanced three-phase operation is desires such as active filters and power controllers. The proposed topology is ready for the next phase of microgrid and power system controllers in that it accepts reactive power commands. This work presents the proposed topology and its working principle supported by with numerical verifications and hardware results. Conclusions and future work are also presented.