A soft-switched, flying inductor DC-DC converter suitable for photovoltaic panels

The paper presents a soft-switched, flying inductor DC/DC converter. The topology allows different ground levels of the input and the output side of a converter which can be beneficial for photovoltaic (PV) installations because it enables grounding of the DC side of PV panels. This reduces common mode current thorough the parasitic capacitances of the PV panels, which is the major issue of PV installations. A resonant capacitor placed in parallel with the link inductor acts as a lossless snubber reducing switching losses of the converter. In addition, the switches are turned on with zero voltage and zero current. Simulation and experimental results are provided.