Development of Neutral-Point Type Converter and Application to Electronic Ballast

This paper presents a neutral-point type buck-boost converter that can decrease input current harmonics and reduce the generation of inrush current at start when turning on. It is possible to utilize this circuit as a converter for the electronic ballast, and the switches in the converter are shared with the inverter for the lighting. It is confirmed by experiments that the proposed electronic ballast can satisfy IEC regulation Class C and can achieve high Power Factor 99.6%.