Five-Level Common-Ground-Type Boosting Inverter With Lesser Capacitor-Stored Energy

This article proposes a compact five-level common-ground-type inverter with inherent boosting capability. Due to the common ground feature, the leakage current is eliminated, making it suitable for solar photovoltaic applications. The distinctive features of the proposed inverter are that it employs two switched capacitors rated for only half of the output voltage with self-voltage balancing ability, which reduces the inverter's size, cost, and complexity. In addition, the proposed topology has the lower component count, the lower total standing voltage, a low dv/dt, lower number of conducting devices, and reduced capacitor voltage diversity factor as compared with its counterparts. The circuit description and operating principle are discussed in detail. Furthermore, the proposed and state-of-the-art topologies are compared with highlight their pros and cons. Further, a discussion of additional features, such as the cost and volume requirements, addresses the usefulness of the proposed topology in practical situations. Finally, experiential results are presented for grid-connected operation of the proposed topology, so as to validate its feasibility.