Differential Power Processing Converter With Active Clamp Structure and Integrated Planar Transformer for Power Generation Optimization of Multiple Photovoltaic Submodules

In recent years, in order to improve the fuel efficiency of electric vehicles, a lot of research has been conducted to adopt photovoltaic (PV) systems to electric vehicles. In addition, various Differential Power Processing (DPP) converters that can mitigate power imbalance among submodules in PV systems are being studied and developed. However, most conventional DPP converters suffer from large volume, low-price competitiveness, and low efficiency. Therefore, in this paper proposes a novel DPP converter. The proposed DPP converter can significantly reduce the volume of converter by integrating multiple transformers into single transformer. Moreover, because of the active clamp structure, it is possible to eliminate secondary side circuits. Furthermore, more than 95% efficiency under 10-60% load and maximum 96.654% efficiency about 20% load were achieved. Thus, the proposed DPP converter can achieve high power density, high price competitiveness, as well as high efficiency. To support the validity of the proposed converter, a prototype of the proposed DPP converter was built, and experiments were proceeded with 8V input and 60W/30V output specifications.