A Novel Nonisolated Z-Source DC–DC Converter for Photovoltaic Applications

Pollution problems caused by fossil fuels have led to more investigations on renewable energy systems. Photovoltaic cells and fuel cells output low-level voltage than required; therefore, high gain dc-dc converters are used to boost this low voltage. The Z-source converter can be employed as dc-dc converter to boost the photovoltaic panel voltages. It also offers other advantages, such as clamped switched voltage, high voltage gain, isolation of energy source from the load, and positive polarity for output voltage; therefore, this is a good choice for high step-up applications. This paper presents analysis of a novel high step-up Z-source based dc-dc converter that has higher voltage gain than the Z-source converter. Furthermore, high efficiency, low device voltage stress, and wide voltage gain range make it a good candidate for photovoltaic and high voltage step-up applications. The proposed dc-dc converter is evaluated experimentally for converting 24-V dc input to 300-V dc output at 100 W and to validate the simulation results.