An Efficiency-Aware Cooperative Multicharger System for Photovoltaic Energy Harvesting Achieving 14% Efficiency Improvement

A high-efficiency multicharger system for photovoltaic energy harvesting is presented in this letter. The multicharger system is widely used for module-integrated converts to offer a good antipartial shading property. The proposed efficiency-aware cooperative control enhances the total power conversion efficiency of the system (ηTOT) by making chargers help each other when there is a difference between the input powers to each charger due to the partial shading. The system is implemented using a 0.5-μm CMOS technology. The ηTOT and the power range (for ηTOT > 80%) are improved by 14% (power difference = 1.082 W) and 0.61 W (lower photovoltaic cell power = 43 mW), respectively.