Non-Isolated Single-Inductor DC/DC Converter With Fully Reconfigurable Structure for Renewable Energy Applications

A novel non-isolated three-port converter (NITPC) is introduced in this brief. The purpose of this topology is to integrate a regenerative load such as DC bus and motor with dynamic braking, instead of the widely reported consuming load, with a photovoltaic (PV)-battery system. Conventional methods require either a separate DC-DC converter to process the reversible power flow or employing an isolated three-port converter (TPC), which allows bi-directional power flow between any two ports. However, these methods require many switches, which increases the converter size and control complexity. This brief hence presents a compact but fully functional design by combining and integrating basic converters to form a simplified single-inductor converter structure while keeping a minimum amount of switches. The resultant converter is fully reconfigurable that all possible power flow combinations among the sources and load are achieved through different switching patterns, while preserving the single power processing feature of TPC. This brief presents a design example of the proposed NITPC for a PV-battery powered DC microgrid. Detailed circuitry analysis, operation principles of both DC grid-connected and islanded modes, and experimental results of different modes in steady state and mode transitions are presented.