Active Neutral Point-Clamped Five-Level Inverter With Single-Stage Dynamic Voltage Boosting Capability

The circuit performance of conventional active neutral point-clamped (ANPC) inverter is widely accepted in many renewable energy-based applications like photovoltaic (PV) or electric vehicle grid-connected systems. This is mainly because of its excellent characteristics in terms of voltage/current stress profile of the switches, bidirectional power flow capability, and efficient operation. Nonetheless, due to its half-dc link voltage utilization in the ac output voltage, another power processing stage with additional active and passive elements is required to make its output voltage compatible with the grid when low and wide varying input dc source is available. In this paper, a novel ANPC-based five-level (ANPC5L) inverter with a single-stage boost-integrated circuit design is presented. The proposed topology is able to make the peak output voltage of the conventional ANPC5L inverter followed by a front-end bidirectional boost converter double using the same number of power switches but with less total standing voltage across semiconductors. The working principles of the proposed topology is discussed. Experimental results obtained from 1.3 kW laboratory-built prototype under the grid-connected condition are also given to support the discussion.