A Non-Pulsating Input Current Step-Up DC/DC Converter With Common Ground Structure for Photovoltaic Applications

Many of the High Gain Step-Up DC/DC converters proposed in the literature do not share common ground and have a pulsating or discontinuous input current, making the converter unsuitable for solar photovoltaic applications. In this article, a non-pulsating input current (NPIC) with a high-gain DC/DC step-up converter is proposed and analyzed in detail. The converter shares a common ground structure and a voltage conversion ratio more than twice that of the Traditional quadratic boost converter (TQBC). The converter has two switches that operate in phase, which makes it easy to control. Also, the voltage stress across all semiconductor devices is lower than the output voltage, which enhances the efficiency of the converter. The loss analysis is carried out with the PLECS software, integrating the real models of switches and diodes from the technical datasheet. To confirm and validate the functionality of the proposed converter, a 200 W hardware prototype is being developed in the laboratory. It was observed that the maximum efficiency was 94.5% with an input voltage of 16V. The converter achieves high gain at low duty cycles and has been shown to perform well in open loop conditions.