Multilevel Inverter Topologies for Stand-Alone PV Systems

Abstract

This paper shows that versatile stand-alone photovoltaic (PV) systems still demand on at least one battery inverter with improved characteristics of robustness and efficiency, which can be achieved using multilevel topologies. A compilation of the most common topologies of multilevel converters is presented, and it shows which ones are best suitable to implement inverters for stand-alone applications in the range of a few kilowatts. As an example, a prototype of 3 kVA was implemented, and peak efficiency of 96.0% was achieved.