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Solar Energy 84 (2010) 636–649

www.elsevier.com/locate/solener

High-efficiency grid-connected photovoltaic module

integrated converter system with high-speed communication
interfaces for small-scale distribution power generation
Woo-Young Choi *, Jih-Sheng (Jason) Lai
Future Energy Electronics Center, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University,
Blacksburg, VA, USA

Received 19 June 2009; received in revised form 13 December 2009; accepted 3 January 2010
Available online 21 February 2010

Communicated by: Associate Editor Igor Tyukhov

Abstract

This paper presents a high-efficiency grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) module integrated converter (MIC) system with reduced PV
current variation. The proposed PV MIC system consists of a high-efficiency step-up DC–DC converter and a single-phase full-bridge
DC–AC inverter. An active-clamping flyback converter with a voltage-doubler rectifier is proposed for the step-up DC–DC converter.
The proposed step-up DC–DC converter reduces the switching losses by eliminating the reverse-recovery current of the output rectifying
diodes. To reduce the PV current variation introduced by the grid-connected inverter, a PV current variation reduction method is also
suggested. The suggested PV current variation reduction method reduces the PV current variation without any additional components.
Moreover, for centralized power control of distributed PV MIC systems, a PV power control scheme with both a central control level and
a local control level is presented. The central PV power control level controls the whole power production by sending out reference power
signals to each individual PV MIC system. The proposed step-up DC–DC converter achieves a high-efficiency of 97.5% at 260 W output
power to generate the DC-link voltage of 350 V from the PV voltage of 36.1 V. The PV MIC system including the DC–DC converter and
the DC–AC inverter achieves a high-efficiency of 95% with the PV current ripple less than 3% variation of the rated PV current.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Photovoltaic (PV); Module integrated converter (MIC); Step-up DC–DC converter; Full-bridge inverter; High-efficiency

1. Introduction mizing the energy yield from the PV module. Each PV

The grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) power condition-
ing system (PCS) is the key technology in the future distrib-
uted production of electricity using solar energy (Roman
et al., 2008). There are basically three types of grid-con-
nected PV PCSs: the centralized PCS, the string PCS,
and the module integrated converter (MIC) PCS (Kjaer
et al., 2005). Among these, the PV MIC system is the most
recent approach for the grid-connected PV PCS. The PV
MIC system offers “plug and play” concept, greatly opti-
*
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: wychoi@vt.edu (W.-Y. Choi).
module has its own DC–AC inverter, performing the max-
imum power point tracking (MPPT) function (Enrique
et al., 2007). To make the PV MIC system commercially
viable, a low-cost and high-efficiency power conversion
scheme should be developed for delivering electrical power
to the grid with a high power factor (Meinhardt et al.,
1999).
Generally, the PV MIC system, as shown in Fig. 1, con-
sists of a DC–DC converter and a single-phase DC–AC
inverter (Li and Wolfs, 2008). The PV module voltage
has a low voltage characteristic. Its output voltage typically
ranges from 20 to 45 V. In order for the low PV module
voltage to generate 60 Hz, 220 V AC output voltage, the

0038-092X/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.solener.2010.01.004
 W.-Y. Choi, Jih-Sheng (Jason) Lai / Solar Energy 84 (2010) 636–649
Fig. 1. Block diagram of the single-phase grid-connected PV MIC system.
output of the DC–DC converter should be about 350 V.
Thus, a step-up DC–DC converter with a high voltage gain
should be required in order to boost the low PV module
voltage into high DC-link voltage. Up to now, various
step-up DC–DC converters have been studied for PV
MIC system applications. As a current-fed step-up DC–
DC converter, the current-fed two-inductor boost convert-
ers (Li and Wolfs, 2006, 2007) ware proposed. The conduc-
tion losses of the power switches at the PV module side are
reduced by using two input inductors. However, current-
fed two-inductor boost converters are difficult to imple-
ment in the PV MIC system. This is predominantly due
to the large inductor size required to meet the high output
current of the PV module, which increases the overall size
and cost of the PV MIC system. To reduce the size and cost
of the PV MIC system, the flyback converter has been uti-
lized for the step-up DC–DC converter (Martins and
Demonti, 2002). As a simple power circuit topology, the
flyback converter is suitable for a wide voltage variation
of the PV module. However, the conventional flyback
converter suffers from high switching losses of the power
switches. To reduce the switching losses, the active-clamp-
ing flyback converters (Boeke et al., 2006; Tseng et al.,
2007) have been studied. The active-clamping flyback con-
verters reduce the switching losses by clamping the volt-
age stress of the power switches. However, the output
rectifying diode in the active-clamping flyback converter
still has the reverse-recovery problems. The output rectify-
ing diode operating in high DC-link voltage produces
large reverse-recovery current during its turn-off instant
(Karadzinov and Hamill, 2000). The diode reverse-recov-
ery current causes a significant increase of the switching
losses at the output rectifying diode, including a large
amount of electromagnetic interference (EMI) noises
and additional thermal management problems in the PV
MIC system.
637
As shown in Fig. 1, since the DC–AC inverter injects the
active power into a single-phase grid, the power variation
at double grid-frequency is superimposed to the DC-link
voltage. Thus, the DC-link voltage variation occurs, which
introduces the PV current variation (Casadei et al., 2006).
Because the PV current variation decreases the MPPT effi-
ciency, the PV current variation should be as small as pos-
sible in order to maximize the power extracted from the PV
module. The PV current variation can be reduced through
the addition of the electrolytic capacitor to the input side of
the step-up DC–DC converter (Schenck et al., 2005). Also,
a large DC-link capacitor can be used to reduce the PV cur-
rent variation (Brekken et al., 2002). However, the addition
of the electrolytic capacitor (Schenck et al., 2005) or the
large DC-link capacitor (Brekken et al., 2002) increases
the overall size and cost of the PV MIC system. As different
alternatives, the active ripple compensation methods with
external DC–DC converter have been suggested: a ripple
power port (Krein and Balog, 2009), an active power filter
(Mazumder et al., 2007), and a DC power smoothing cir-
cuit (Shimizu et al., 2002). However, all these methods
require additional power conversion circuits, which
increase the manufacturing cost and decrease the power
conversion efficiency of the PV MIC system.
To cope with all these problems, this paper presents a
high-efficiency grid-connected PV MIC system with
reduced PV current variation. For a high-efficiency step-
up DC–DC converter, an active-clamping flyback con-
verter with a voltage-doubler rectifier is proposed. As
shown in Fig. 2, a boost type of active-clamping circuit is
used at the PV module side. At the DC-link voltage side,
a voltage-doubler rectifier using one resonant capacitor is
used. The voltage-doubler rectifier provides a series-reso-
nant circuit consisting of the transformer leakage inductor
and the resonant capacitor. Zero-current switching of the
output rectifying diodes is achieved (Choi et al., 2007),
638 W.-Y. Choi, Jih-Sheng (Jason) Lai / Solar Energy 84 (2010) 636–649
Fig. 2. Circuit diagram of the proposed PV MIC system.
which can effectively eliminate the reverse-recovery current
of the output rectifying diodes. In order to reduce the PV
current variation, a practical PV current variation reduc-
tion method is also suggested. By adding the PV current
variation cancellation duty ratio to the control duty ratio
of the proposed step-up DC–DC converter, the low fre-
quency PV current variation can be reduced without any
additional components. The overall system configuration
is briefly described. The operation of the proposed step-
up DC–DC converter is presented with the PV current var-
iation reduction control. Moreover, for centralized power
control of distributed PV MIC systems, a PV power con-
trol scheme with both a central control level and a local
control level is presented. The central PV power control
level controls the whole power production by sending out
reference power signals to each individual PV MIC system.
The local PV power control level ensures that the reference
power signal from the central control level is reached.
Experimental results based on 260 W prototype of the pro-
posed PV MIC system are discussed. The proposed step-up
DC–DC converter achieves an efficiency of 97.5% at 260 W
power to generate the DC-link voltage of 350 V from the
PV voltage of 36.1 V. The overall PV MIC system includ-
ing the DC–DC converter and the DC–AC inverter
achieves a high efficiency of 95% with the PV current ripple
less than 3% variation of the rated PV current. The central-
ized PV power control scheme is also evaluated through
two sets of proposed PV MIC systems.
2. Overall system configuration
Fig. 2 shows the circuit diagram of the proposed PV MIC
system. The PV MIC system consists of an active-clamping
flyback converter with a voltage-doubler rectifier and a sin-
gle-phase full-bridge DC–AC inverter. The step-up DC–DC
converter consists of a boost type of an active-clamping cir-
cuit (Cc, S1, S2), a transformer (T), and a voltage-doubler
rectifier (Llk, Cr, Do1, Do2). The switches S1 and S2 are the
metal–oxide-semiconductor field effect transistors (MOS-
FETs), which are driven complementarily. The full-bridge
inverter (S3  S6, Lo) is controlled to supply the electrical
power to the grid with a unity power factor, performing
the MPPT function (Kim, 2007). The switches S3  S6 are
the insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs).
3. Step-up DC–DC converter
Fig. 3 shows the simplified circuit model of the proposed
step-up DC–DC converter, which shows the reference
directions of currents and voltages. The capacitors Cpv
and Cc are the input capacitor and clamping capacitor,
respectively. The capacitor Cd is the DC-link capacitor.
The capacitors Cpv, Cc, and Cd are large enough so that
the PV module voltage Vpv, clamping capacitor voltage
Vc, and DC-link capacitor voltage Vd are constant. The
active-clamping circuit is of boost type so that Vc > Vpv.
The diodes DS1 and DS2 are the body diodes of S1 and
S2, respectively. The capacitors CS1 and CS2 are the output
capacitors of S1 and S2, respectively. The turns ratio n of
the transformer T is defined as n = Ns/Np. Lm is the magne-
tizing inductor of T at the primary side. Llk is the leakage
inductor of T at the secondary side. Cr is the resonant
capacitor in the voltage-doubler rectifier. Do1 and Do2 are
the output rectifying diodes. The proposed step-up DC–
DC converter has six operating modes during one switch-
ing period Ts. Fig. 4 shows the corresponding circuit dia-
gram of the proposed step-up DC–DC converter for each
operating mode. Fig. 5 shows the theoretical waveforms
of the proposed step-up DC–DC converter during Ts.
The duty ratio D is referred to S1 turn-on duty.
Mode 1 [t0, t1]: At t = t0, S1 is turned on. Since
vLm = Vpv, the magnetizing inductor current iLm increases
linearly as
V pv
iLm ðtÞ ¼ ip ðt0 Þ þ ðt  t0 Þ: ð1Þ
Lm
When nVpv is applied across the secondary winding of T,
the output rectifying diode Do1 is turned on. A series-reso-
nant circuit consisting of Llk and Cr is formed at the sec-
ondary side. By the series-resonance between Llk and Cr,
 W.-Y. Choi, Jih-Sheng (Jason) Lai / Solar Energy 84 (2010) 636–649
Fig. 3. Simplified circuit model of the proposed step-up DC–DC converter.
the energy stored in the resonant capacitor Cr is transferred
to the DC-link capacitor Cd. The angular resonant fre-
quency xr of the series-resonant circuit is
1
xr ¼ 2pfr ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ;
Llk C r
where fr is the resonant frequency. By referring the output
rectifying diode current iDo1 to the primary side, the pri-
mary current ip is expressed as
V pv
ip ðtÞ ¼ ip ðt0 Þ þ ðt  t0 Þ þ niDo1;peak sin xr ðt  t0 Þ;
Lm
where iDo1,peak is the peak value of the output rectifying
diode current iDo1.
Mode 2 [t1, t2]: At t = t1, the half-resonant period of the
output rectifying diode current iDo1 is finished. The output
rectifying diode current iDo1 is zero before Do1 is turned off.
Zero-current switching of Do1 is achieved without any
diode reverse-recovery current at the end of Mode 2.
Mode 3 [t2, t3]: At t = t2, S1 is turned off. The primary
current ip charges CS1 and discharges CS2. The voltage vS1
across S1 increases from zero to the clamping capacitor
voltage Vc. Since the capacitor CS (CS = CS1 = CS2) is very
small, the time interval during this mode is considered neg-
ligible compared to Ts.
Mode 4 [t3, t4]: At t = t3, the voltage vS2 across S2 is
zero. The voltage vS1 across S1 is clamped at Vc. The pri-
mary current ip begins to flow the body diode DS2 of S2.
S2 is turned on at zero-voltage. Since vLm = (Vc  Vpv),
the magnetizing inductor current iLm decreases linearly as
V pv  V c
iLm ðtÞ ¼ ip ðt3 Þ þ ðt  t3 Þ:
Lm
When n(Vpv  Vc) is applied reversely across the second-
ary winding of T, the output rectifying diode Do2 is turned
on. The series-resonant circuit consisting of Llk and Cr is
formed again. The input power is transferred to the reso-
639
nant capacitor Cr by the series-resonance between Llk
and Cr. By referring the output rectifying diode current
iDo2 to the primary side, the primary current ip is expressed
as
ð2Þ
V pv  V c
iP ðtÞ ¼ ip ðt3 Þ þ ðt  t3 Þ  niDo2;peak sin xr ðt  t3 Þ;
Lm
ð5Þ
where iDo2,peak is the peak value of the output rectifying
diode current iDo2.
ð3Þ
Mode 5 [t4, t5]: At t = t4, the half-resonant period of the
output rectifying diode current iDo2 is finished. The output
rectifying diode current iDo2 is zero before Do2 is turned off.
Zero-current switching of Do2 is achieved without any
diode reverse-recovery current at the end of Mode 5.
Mode 6 [t5, t6]: At t = t5, S2 is turned off. The current ip
discharges CS1 and charges CS2. The voltage vS1 across S1
decreases from the clamping voltage Vc to zero. The time
interval during this mode is considered negligible as Mode
3. The next switching cycle begins when S1 is turned on
again.
From the volt-second balance on the primary winding of
T, the clamping capacitor voltage Vc is obtained as
Vc = Vpv/(1  D). From the volt-second balance on the sec-
ondary winding of T, the resonant capacitor voltage VCr is
obtained as VCr = (1  D)Vd. During Ts, the PV module
power is directly transferred to the DC-link capacitor in
two steps. The power Pd1 transferred by the first series-res-
onance during Mode 1 is expressed as
Z t1
1
P d1 ¼ nV pv iDo1;peak sin½xr ðt  t0 Þ dt
ð4Þ T s t0
nV pv xs iDo1;peak
¼ ; ð6Þ
pxr
where xs is the angular switching frequency as xs = 2pfs,
and fs is the switching frequency as fs = 1/Ts. The power
640 W.-Y. Choi, Jih-Sheng (Jason) Lai / Solar Energy 84 (2010) 636–649

Fig. 4. Corresponding circuit diagram of the proposed step-up DC–DC converter for each operating mode during Ts.

Pd2 transferred by the second series-resonance during Mode Since the same components using Llk and Cr are used
4 is expressed as for both series-resonant circuits, we assume that iS,peak =
Z t4 iDo1,peak = iDo2,peak. By rearranging (8), we have
1
P d2 ¼ nðV c  V pv Þ iDo2;peak sin½xr ðt  t3 Þ dt
T s t3 pxr ð1  DÞP d
iS;peak ¼ ð9Þ
nV pv Dxs iDo2;peak nxs V pv
¼ : ð7Þ
pxr ð1  DÞ
The average DC-link current Id during Ts is expressed as
Since the DC-link power Pd is supplied by the sum of Z t1
Pd1 and Pd2 during Ts, we have the following relation: 1
Id ¼ iS;peak sin½xr ðt  to Þ dt ð10Þ
T s t0
nV pv xs iDo1;peak nV pv Dxs iDo2;peak
Pd ¼ þ ð8Þ
pxr pxr ð1  DÞ By simplifying (10), we have
 W.-Y. Choi, Jih-Sheng (Jason) Lai / Solar Energy 84 (2010) 636–649 641

Fig. 6 shows the relationship between the PV module

voltage Vpv and the duty ratio D to generate the DC-link
voltage of 350 V for different turns ratios of T. The lower
PV voltage is used for generating the DC-link voltage for
a higher turns ratio of T.
To eliminate the reverse-recovery current of the output
rectifying diode, the output rectifying diode current should
be zero before the output rectifying diode is turned off. For
zero-current switching of each output rectifying diode, the
half-resonant period of each output rectifying diode cur-
rent should be finished before the output rectifying diode
is turned off. Then, the following condition should be sat-
isfied as
sin½xcr Dmax T s  ¼ 0; if Dmax < 0:5 ð13Þ
sin½xcr ð1  Dmax ÞT s  ¼ 0; if Dmax > 0:5 ð14Þ
where Dmax is the maximum duty ratio, xcr is the critical
angular resonant frequency as xcr = 2pfcr, and fcr is the
critical resonant frequency. For zero-current switching of
each output rectifying diode, the resonant frequency fr
should be higher than the critical resonant frequency fcr.
Then, the resonant capacitor Cr should be determined as
1 D2max T 2s
Cr < ¼ ; if Dmax < 0:5 ð15Þ
x2cr Llk p2 Llk
ð1  Dmax Þ2 T 2s
¼ ; if Dmax > 0:5: ð16Þ
p2 Llk

4. PV current variation reduction control

When the full-bridge DC–AC inverter injects the output

power Po into a single-phase grid, the instantaneous output
power po operates at the double frequency of the output
voltage vo. If the output current io is in phase with the out-
put voltage vo, the instantaneous output power po injected
into the single-phase grid is expressed as
pffiffiffi pffiffiffi
po ¼ vo io ¼ 2V o sin xt  2I o sin xt
¼ V o I o ð1  cos 2xtÞ ð17Þ
where Vo and Io are the root-mean-squared (rms) values of
the output voltage and output current, respectively. x is the
angular frequency of the output voltage as x = 2pf, and f is
the grid-frequency. The power ripple at the angular fre-
Fig. 5. Theoretical waveforms of the proposed step-up DC–DC converter quency of 2x is superimposed to the average DC-link volt-
during Ts. age Vd. It is reflected on the instantaneous DC-link voltage
vd as a voltage ripple, which introduces the PV current var-
iation. To avoid the PV current variation, the step-up DC–
pxr I d
iS;peak ¼ : ð11Þ DC converter should supply only DC component current
xs Id. The instantaneous DC-link power pd is expressed as
From (9), (11), and the relation of Pd = Vd Id, the volt- pd ¼ V d id ¼ V d ðI d þ iCd Þ ð18Þ
age conversion ratio of the proposed step-up DC–DC con- where iCd is the instantaneous current of the DC-link
verter is obtained as capacitor. The DC component current Id is expressed as
Vd n V oI o
¼ : ð12Þ Id ¼ ð19Þ
V pv ð1  DÞ Vd
642 W.-Y. Choi, Jih-Sheng (Jason) Lai / Solar Energy 84 (2010) 636–649

Fig. 6. Relationship between the PV voltage and the duty ratio to generate the DC-link voltage of 350 V for different turns ratios of T.

From (17)–(19), the instantaneous current iCd of the From (22) and (24), the PV current variation cancella-
DC-link capacitor is expressed as tion duty ratio Dvar is given by
V oI o Dvar ¼ k var V pv I o sin 2xt ð25Þ
iCd ¼ cos 2xt: ð20Þ
Vd
where
From the instantaneous current iCd of the DC-link nV o
capacitor, the instantaneous DC-link voltage vd can be k var ¼ : ð26Þ
2xC d V 3d
obtained as follows:
Z Fig. 7 shows the block diagram of the PV current vari-
1 V oI o
vd ¼ V d þ iCd dt ¼ V d þ sin 2xt: ð21Þ ation reduction controller where Vd,ref is the reference value
Cd 2xC d V d
for the average DC-link voltage Vd.
The instantaneous DC-link voltage vd consists of the
average DC-link voltage Vd and its voltage variation. The 5. Simulation results
DC-link voltage variation introduces the PV current varia-
tion followed by the step-up DC–DC converter. In order to The suggested PV current variation reduction control is
reduce the PV current variation for the instantaneous DC- simulated by using PSIM for the proposed system. PSIM is
link voltage vd, the duty ratio in (12) should be a simulation software package especially designed for
vd n power electronics and motor control (Veerachary, 2006).
¼ ð22Þ The electrical system parameters for the simulation are
V pv 1  ðDctrl þ Dvar Þ
the DC-link voltage Vd = 350 V, output voltage Vo = 60
where Dctrl is the control duty ratio to regulate the average Hz/220 V, and the output power Po = 260 W. A circuit-
DC-link voltage Vd, and Dvar is the PV current variation
cancellation duty ratio. Using (21), the relation between
vd and Vpv in (22) can be rewritten as
V pv V pv
¼  
vd V d 1 þ 2xCo I oV 2 sin 2xt
V
d d
 
V pv V oI o
ffi 1 sin 2xt : ð23Þ
Vd 2xC d V 2d
Using the relation of Vd/Vpv = n/(1– Dctrl) in (12), (23)
can be rewritten as
V pv 1 nV pv V o I o
¼ ð1  Dctrl  sin 2xtÞ: ð24Þ
vd n 2xC d V 3d Fig. 7. Block diagram of the PV current variation reduction controller.
 W.-Y. Choi, Jih-Sheng (Jason) Lai / Solar Energy 84 (2010) 636–649
based solar module model is formed, using the photovol-
taic array model in Villalva et al. (2009). The electrical
characteristics of the PV module are shown in Fig. 8. The
variable parameters such as solar insolation and module
surface temperature are included in the external dynamic
linked library (DLL) block, which allows users to write
code in C/C++ and link it with PSIM. The PV module
produces the maximum power of 260 W at the PV voltage
of 36.1 V. Fig. 9 shows the overall simulation schematic
diagram of the proposed system. The controllers for the
proposed step-up DC–DC converter and the full-bridge
DC–AC inverter are implemented using two DLL blocks,
respectively. In the DC–DC converter controller, the sug-
gested PV current variation reduction control in Fig. 7 is
implemented. The PV module voltage Vpv, the DC-link
voltage Vd, and the output current Io are measured in order
to generate the DC-link voltage of 350 V and to reduce the
PV current variation. In the DC–AC inverter controller,
the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) control and
unity power factor control are implemented. The conven-
tional incremental and conductance method (Liu et al.,
2008) is adopted for MPPT control, which can track the
maximum power point of the PV module and generate
the current reference for the power factor correction of
the DC–AC inverter. The PV module voltage Vpv, the PV
module current Ipv, the output voltage Vo, and the output
current Io are measured for MPPT and grid-connection
of the PV MIC system.
Fig. 10 shows the simulated results of the PV MIC sys-
tem when it supplies 260 W power to the grid. Fig. 10(a)
shows the PV module current and grid voltage when the
suggested PV current variation reduction control is not
used in the DC–DC converter. A large ripple current of
the double grid-frequency of 120 Hz appears on the PV
module side. Fig. 10(b) shows the PV module current and
grid voltage when the suggested PV current variation
Fig. 8. Electrical characteristics of the PV module.
643
reduction control is implemented in the DC–DC converter
controller. The simulation results shows that the low fre-
quency PV current variation in the grid-connected PV
MIC system can be reduced by the suggested PV current
variation reduction control. By adding only the PV current
variation cancellation duty ratio to the steady-state control
duty ratio of the DC–DC converter, the low frequency PV
current is reduced without using any additional circuit
components.
6. Experimental results
To evaluate the performance of the proposed PV MIC
system, a 260 W prototype system was built and tested.
Table 1 shows the major components and parameters of
the PV MIC system. For the minimum PV voltage of
Vpv = 22 V and the selected turns ratio of n = 6, the maxi-
mum duty ratio Dmax is determined as about Dmax = 0.62.
For fs = 50 kHz, the critical resonant frequency fcr is deter-
mined as fcr = 65 kHz by (14). For the leakage inductor of
Llk = 0.8 lH, the resonant capacitor Cr is selected as Cr = 7
lF in order to ensure zero-current switching of the output
rectifying diodes by (16). The resonant frequency fr is
determined as about fr = 67 kHz, which is slightly higher
than fcr. The full-bridge DC–AC inverter is implemented
with a sinusoidal pulse-width modulation (SPWM) method
(Lee et al., 2008) at 20 kHz switching frequency to generate
60 Hz/220 V output voltage. The control function is imple-
mented by using a single-chip microcontroller,
dsPIC30F4011 (Microchip), which has 9-channel 10-bit
A/D converter, one controller area network (CAN), and
6-PWM channels.
Fig. 11 shows the experimental waveforms of the step-
up DC–DC converter at the maximum PV power of
260 W for the PV voltage of 36.1 V. Fig. 11(a) shows the
voltage and current waveforms of S2. When S2 is turned
644 W.-Y. Choi, Jih-Sheng (Jason) Lai / Solar Energy 84 (2010) 636–649

Fig. 9. Overall simulation schematic diagram of the proposed system.

Fig. 10. Simulation results: (a) PV module current and grid voltage when the suggested PV current variation reduction control is not used. (b) PV module
current and grid voltage when the suggested PV current variation reduction control is used.
 W.-Y. Choi, Jih-Sheng (Jason) Lai / Solar Energy 84 (2010) 636–649 645

Table 1
Major components and parameters of the PV MIC system.
System parameters Value
Major components and system parameters
DC-link voltage Vd 350 V
Output voltage Vo 60 Hz/220 V
Switching frequency fs 50 kHz
Input filter capacitor Cpv 1200 lF/100 V
DC-link capacitor Cd 220 lF/450 V
Clamping capacitor Cc 680 lF/100 V
Resonant capacitor Cr 7 lF/450 V
Output capacitor Cs1, CS2 540 pF/100 V
Trans fomier turns ratio n = 6 (N = 4, Ns = 24)
Magnetizing inductor 10 lH
Leakage inductor 0.8 lH
Output filter inductor 1 mH
MOSFET S1, S2 IRFB4310{100 V/4 A)
IGBT S3  S6 FGP7N60RUFD (600 V/7 A)
Diode Dol Do2 FFPF15U40S (400 V/15 A)

on, the voltage across S2 is zero before the switch current

iS2 changes its direction. Thus, zero-voltage switching of
S2 is achieved during its turn-on instant. When S2 is turned
off, the voltage across S2 is almost constant without any
significant voltage stress. Fig. 11(b) and (c) show the volt-
age and current waveforms of Do1 and Do2, respectively.
When the output rectifying diode is turned on, the series-
resonance between the leakage inductor Llk and the reso-
nant capacitor Cr occurs. Before the output rectifying
diode is turned off, the half-resonant period of the output
rectifying diode current is finished. Thus, zero-current
switching of each output rectifying diode is achieved during
its turn-off instant without any diode reverse-recovery
current.
Fig. 12 shows the experimental waveforms of the PV
MIC system when it supplies 260 W power to the grid.
Fig. 12(a) shows the grid voltage and current waveforms.
The grid current is sinusoidal and in phase with the
60 Hz/220 V grid voltage, which implies that the PV MIC
system feeds only real power to the grid with an almost
unity power factor. Fig. 12(b) shows the PV current and
grid voltage without the PV current variation reduction
control. The average input current is 7.2 A, and the
peak-to-peak current ripple is 1.8 A (25.0%). It is observed
that a large ripple current of the double grid-frequency of
120 Hz appears on the input side of the DC–DC converter Fig. 11. Experimental waveforms of the step-up DC–DC converter at the
maximum PV power of 260 W for the PV voltage of 36.1 V: (a) voltage
without the PV current variation reduction control. and current waveforms of S2. (b) Voltage and current waveforms of Do1.
Fig. 12(c) shows the PV current and grid voltage with the (c) Voltage and current waveforms of Do2.
PV current variation reduction control. The peak-to-peak
current ripple is less than 0.2 A (2.7%), which shows that
the PV current variation is significantly reduced by the sug- calculating the efficiency. It has such precise accuracy of
gested PV current variation reduction control. the measurement as very low current measurements within
Fig. 13 shows the measured efficiencies of the proposed 5 mA range, DC measurement from 0.5 Hz to 100 kHz fre-
PV MIC system for the PV module voltage of 36.1 V. quency range, and high-speed data update as fast as 10
Fig. 13(a) shows the instrument to measure the power effi- readings per second. Fig. 13(b) shows the measured effi-
ciency of the experimental system. YOKOGAWA WT210, ciencies of the proposed converter, the conventional fly-
as a digital power meter, was utilized for precisely measur- back converter (Martins and Demonti, 2002), and the
ing the input and output power of the PV MIC system and conventional active-clamping flyback converter (Boeke
646 W.-Y. Choi, Jih-Sheng (Jason) Lai / Solar Energy 84 (2010) 636–649

Fig. 12. Experimental waveforms of the proposed PV MIC system when it

supplies 260 W power to the grid: (a) grid voltage and current waveforms
of the PV MIC system. (b) PV current and grid voltage without the PV
current variation reduction control. (c) PV current and grid voltage with
the PV current variation reduction control.
et al., 2006). The measured efficiencies from the flyback
converter and from the active-clamping converter are
96.8% and 97.1%, respectively, for the maximum output
load condition. The active-clamping flyback converter
improves the power efficiency by 0.3%. The proposed con-
verter achieves an efficiency of 97.5% for the maximum
output load condition. It improves the power efficiency
Fig. 13. Measured efficiency of the proposed PV MIC system: (a)
instrument to measure the power efficiency of the experimental system.
(b) Measured efficiencies of the proposed step-up DC–DC converter, the
conventional flyback converter, and the conventional active-clamping
flyback converter with the output load variation. (c) Measured efficiency
of the overall PV MIC system when the suggested PV current variation
reduction control is used. (d) Measured efficiency of the overall PV MIC
system when the suggested PV current variation reduction control is not
used.
 W.-Y. Choi, Jih-Sheng (Jason) Lai / Solar Energy 84 (2010) 636–649 647

by 0.7%, which translates into approximately 22% reduc-
tion of the power losses compared to the flyback converter.
The efficiency improvement is prominent at the maximum
output power condition where the reverse-recovery current
of the output rectifying diode is the most significant.
Fig. 13(c) shows the measured efficiency of the overall PV
MIC system including the DC–DC converter and the
DC–AC inverter when the suggested PV current variation
reduction control is used. Fig. 13(d) shows the measured
efficiency of the overall PV MIC system when the suggested
PV current variation reduction control is not used. The
proposed PV MIC system achieves an efficiency of 95%
at the maximum output power and shows an efficiency
improvement by 0.2% at the maximum output power when
the suggested PV current variation reduction control is
applied to the system.
7. Extension for distributed generation units
The PV MIC system operates always on maximum
power point, extracting the maximum power available
from the panels, while the storage unit operation is ruled
by energy prices. The PV MIC system charges the storage
unit when prices are low and discharges when energy prices
are high. As the storage unit is a flexible unit for providing
and consuming energy, its output power can also be con-
trolled by the central supervisory controller for meeting
different requirements in the grid. With the central supervi-
sory control, the PV MIC systems have the various remote
control options like monitoring, local voltage control, com-
pensating for the error in generation and load forecast.
An important feature that the supervisory control of the
modern distributed power generation units should have is

Fig. 14. Block diagram of the global system using the proposed PV MIC system.
648 W.-Y. Choi, Jih-Sheng (Jason) Lai / Solar Energy 84 (2010) 636–649
the capacity to transfer, monitor, and store a large number
of internal variables. This structure permits the communi-
cation and sharing of information between the different
generation units with a central remote operator coordi-
nately working. This information can be sent online to a
local or remote host to make decisions about the new set
points of the different generation units. To include these
capabilities, the CAN bus (Prodanov et al., 2009) can be
chosen to implement the high-speed communication elec-
tronic systems. Fig. 14 shows the block diagram of the glo-
bal system using two proposed PV MIC systems, showing
how they are connected for extension for distributed power
generation units. In this way, the central supervisory con-
troller can monitor all control variables and parameters
and send them through a local network or Internet to local
main controller or any other remote operator. This per-
mits, as one generation unit, the PV MIC system in
Fig. 2, to be controlled in a distributed way.
8. Conclusions
In this paper, a high-efficiency grid-connected PV MIC
system with reduced PV current variation was proposed.
For a high-efficiency step-up DC–DC converter, an
active-clamping flyback converter with a voltage-doubler
rectifier was proposed to reduce the switching losses at
the output rectifying diodes. Zero-current switching of
the output rectifying diodes is achieved, which can effec-
tively eliminate the reverse-recovery current of the output
rectifying diodes. In order to reduce the PV current varia-
tion, a PV current variation reduction method was also
suggested. Moreover, for centralized power control of dis-
tributed PV MIC systems, a PV power control scheme with
both a central control level and a local control level is pre-
sented. By the PV current variation reduction method, the
low frequency PV current variation can be reduced without
adding any components. A 260 W prototype of the pro-
posed PV MIC system was implemented to evaluate its per-
formance. The proposed step-up DC–DC converter
achieves an efficiency of 97.5% at 260 W power to generate
the DC-link voltage of 350 V from the PV voltage of
36.1 V. The overall PV MIC system achieves a power effi-
ciency of 95% with the PV current ripple less than 3% var-
iation of the rated PV current. The proposed system is
expected to be very promising for a practical PV MIC sys-
tem, which requires a low-cost and high-efficiency.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the National Research
Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Gov-
ernment [NRF-2009-352-D00110].
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