Application of Non-Isolated Quadratic Boost DC- DC Converter for Solar PV Integration

This paper presents a single switch quadratic boost converter (SS-QBC) to track the Maximum Power Point (MPP) of a solar PV system. The converter has three diodes, two capacitors, two inductors, and a single switch. The converter achieves an ultimate 25-fold theoretical voltage gain at duty ratio value of 0.8. The switched model of the converter is used to derive the steady-state voltage gain equation. This approach is straightforward and simple than inductor volt-sec balance approach. The converter is considered as a cascaded boost converter due to the nature of its gain and is used to track the Maximum Power Point (MPP) of a solar PV using the conventional P&O algorithm. Therefore, resulting in a higher voltage gain at the output terminals of the converter along with MPPT. A detailed time response analysis, showing the performance of the SS-QBC based MPPT of the solar PV is done after simulating the algorithm and plotting response waveforms of PV power, voltage, and current. Further, a detailed Hardware in-Loop (HIL) test set up idea, is put forward in this paper. The set-up is based on FPGA controller based prototyping platform along with an advanced PV emulator, making it capable to test advanced algorithms with more number of environmental conditions and constraints. Thus, serving as a standard set-up for any researcher in this field.