Double switch two leg high gain boost converter for renewable energy applications in a DC microgrid

Abstract

The voltage output at the terminals of a DC generating source such as Photovoltaic and Fuel cells is not enough to be integrated with the DC bus of a microgrid. Therefore, an efficient DC-DC converter is demanded for boosting the voltage. The available conventional converter needs to be operated at an extremely large duty ratio resulting in various detrimental effects on the converter circuit. Impaired transient response, increased EMI and voltage spikes are observed as a consequence of large duty ratio. High gain DC/DC converters are thus sought which must be attaining sufficiently high voltage on moderate duty ratio. This paper presents a novel converter utilizing two switches and switch inductors to come across the voltage suitable for integration of a renewable energy source into a DC microgrid. This particular converter does not uses transformers, coupled inductors, or some cascaded configurations. Moreover, the switches being controlled simultaneously do not need a complex control circuitry. The analysis of the introduced converter is done in CCM and DCM along with the boundary conditions. The performance is verified through simulation and experimental results.