High-Performance Buck-Boost Partial Power Quasi-Z-Source Series Resonance Converter

The converter efficiency defines the overall efficiency of a renewable energy system. In a full power converter, its components process the whole input power, even if it is not mandatory. Partial power processing (PPP) is an exciting concept for improving overall system efficiency and reducing system cost and size. In PPP, the converter processes the amount of power needed to be processed. This work proposes a PPP based on the high-performance Quasi-Z-Source Series Resonance converter (QZSSRC). The proposed partial power converter has a series-input parallel-output (SIPO) architecture. Previous publications in this area mainly consider converters with step-down voltage regulation, like the phase-shifted full-bridge converter. They underperform in this application due to operating at the maximum power when bucking the voltage the most. This paper studies two other types of dc-dc converters, buck-boost and boost, in SIPO partial power converters. Theoretical operation principles are corroborated with full experimental results given and analyzed. A 300 W prototype of the QZSSRC is used to convert the power of up to 2 kW in a PPP system with overall system efficiency over 99%.