High-Gain Resonant Switched-Capacitor Cell-Based DC/DC Converter for Offshore Wind Energy Systems

Abstract

With the increasing integration of renewable energy generation into high-power grids, transmission at the dc level is becoming increasingly more useful than ac transmission. In this regard, emerging applications, such as offshore wind farms, require a high voltage gain dc/dc conversion system to interface with high-power transmission networks. This paper presents a new high-voltage gain resonant switched-capacitor dc/dc converter for high-power offshore wind energy systems. The proposed dc/dc converter is characterized by the resonant switching transitions to achieve minimal switching losses and maximum system efficiency. Therefore, a higher switching frequency is conceivable to attain a higher power density. The double stage output voltage of the proposed converter operates at seven times as high as the input voltage with a small device count. The output capacitors are charged and discharged continuously by a 180° phase shift with respect to each other to eliminate the output voltage ripples with the low capacitance requirements. The proposed series-modular and cascade configurations show the intrinsic advantage of being readily applicable to multistage power switching converters. The developed topology has been implemented on a 5-kW prototype converter to test its feasibility.