A Novel Reduced Component Seven Level Inverter with Triple-Boosting Capability

Increasing adoption of low-voltage based renewable energy system demands high-gain inverters. This paper proposes a novel low component count switched capacitor based seven-level inverter with triple voltage gain. Using 7 switches, 3 diodes, 2 capacitors, and single voltage source, it produces seven voltage levels. Capacitor voltages are systematically added with the dc voltage source to generate higher voltage levels. Charging and discharging of these capacitors are automatically balanced throughout cycles by employing appropriate switching states without requiring additional sensors or control hardware. A low-frequency based optimum nearest level modulation (NLM) technique is adopted to generate switching signals for enhanced voltage quality. The total harmonic distortion (THD) of the generated output voltage with resistive load is 11.89 %, and employing a small LCL filter it reduces to 1.29 %. Inverter performance is evaluated in MATLAB/SIMULINK platform using both R and R-L loads. The superiority of the proposed topology is assessed through extensive comparative analysis with the similar one reported in the past.