Photovoltaic-Battery-Powered DC Bus System for Common Portable Electronic Devices

Abstract

Renewable energy sources based on photovoltaic (PV) along with battery-based energy storage necessitate power conditioning to meet load requirements and/or be connected to the electrical grid. The power conditioning is achieved via a dc-dc converter and a DC-AC inverter stages to produce the desired AC source. This is also the case even when the load is of dc type, such as the typical portable electronic devices that require AC adaptors to be powered from the AC mains. The letter presents a hybrid PV-battery-powered dc bus system that eliminates the DC-AC conversion stage, resulting in lower cost and improved overall energy conversion efficiency. It is also shown experimentally that the switching ac adaptors associated with the various commonly used portable electronic devices can be reused with the proposed dc bus system. A novel high-gain hybrid boost-flyback converter is also introduced with several times higher voltage conversion ratio than the conventional boost converter topology. This arrangement results in higher DC bus levels and lower cable conduction losses. Moreover, the voltage stress on the hybrid boost-flyback converter power switch is within half the output voltage. Experimental results taken from a laboratory prototype are presented to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed converter/system.