Standalone solar power generation using 3-phase multilevel inverter with simpler basic unit cells

A standalone 3-phase half-bridge multilevel inverter with simple basic unit cells coupled to solar power generation is proposed. This proposed inverter is able to operate in either charging mode or inverter mode, which is suitable for solar power generation using photovoltaic modules. The active switches (power MOSFET) in this proposed inverter is operating at fundamental or twice the fundamental frequency of the AC mains, resulting in lower switching losses. The proposed topology operating in inverter mode has been verified via simulation studies. The simulation results show that the proposed inverter is capable of supplying AC voltages with low total harmonic distortion to the load. In addition, the proposed inverter requires lower number of power MOSFETs and gate driver units, which improves the reliability.