A Solar Power Generation System with a Seven-Level Inverter

Abstract— A new solar power generation system, which is composed of a DC/DC power converter and a new seven-level inverter. The DC/DC power converter integrates a DC-DC boost converter and a transformer to convert the output voltage of the solar cell array into two independent voltage sources with multiple relationships. This new seven-level inverter is configured using a capacitor selection circuit and a full-bridge power converter, connected in cascade. The capacitor selection circuit converts the two output voltage sources of DC-DC power converter into a three-level DC voltage and the full-bridge power converter further converts this three-level DC voltage into a seven-level AC voltage. In this way, the proposed solar power generation system generates a sinusoidal output current that is in phase with the utility voltage and is fed into the utility. The salient features of the proposed seven-level inverter are that only six power electronic switches are used and only one power electronic switch is switched at high frequency at any time. A prototype is developed and tested to verify the performance of this proposed solar power generation system. < final year projects >