Comparative efficiency study of single phase photovoltaic grid connected inverters using PLECS®

Global warming is already having significant and costly effects on our communities, our health, and our climate. Nowadays, In developing countries (G20) around the world, decisions are being considered and a shifting of our dependence from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources (RES). Among RES solar energy, specially photovoltaic system (PV) play a key role in this challenge, thus, this paper provides a comparative study on the performances of three transformer-less inverters for photovoltaic applications (H-Bridge, H5, HERIC and NPC inverters) in terms of power losses, considering the use of different kinds of switches. Silicon (Si) and Silicon Carbide (SiC) diodes have been combined with two topologies of IGBTs in the performed tests. Simulation results have been obtained for each of the systems in different operating conditions by using PLECS software. Power losses and European Efficiency (EE) have been calculated for all the topologies, taking into account the real characteristics of the switches by using the thermal models provided by the software library.