Single-switch voltage equalizer based on forward-flyback resonant voltage multiplier for partially-shaded series-connected photovoltaic modules

Partial shading on photovoltaic (PV) strings is known to generate serious issues, such as reduced power generation and occurrence of multiple power point maxima. Although various kinds of PV equalizers have been proposed for preventing the partial shading issues, most conventional PV equalizers require numerous switches, likely increasing the circuit complexity. In this paper, the single-switch PV equalizer is proposed to simplify the circuit. The proposed PV equalizer is composed of a forward-flyback resonant inverter (FFRI) and voltage multiplier (VM). The simulation and experimental results demonstrated that the proposed PV equalizer successfully precluded the negative impacts of partial shading.