A New and Modular Active Snubber Cell for Inverters

Abstract

In this paper, a new modular and active snubber cell, easily applicable, and attractive for converters, especially have many switches proposed. This snubber cell is implemented on the single phase of a grid-connected three-phase T-type three-level inverter (T-3LI). In this new converter, the main switches turn-on under zero-voltage transition and turn-off under zero-voltage switching (ZVS). Also, auxiliary switches turn-on under zero-current switching and turn-off under ZVS. All snubber diodes operate under soft switching (SS). There are no additional current and voltage stresses on the main switches. During an SS operation, the switching energies are transferred to a dc voltage source. Then, these energies are processed to input with an independent dc-dc converter. Thus, all switching energies are recycled. In this paper, the principle operation and steady-state analysis of the modular and active snubber cell for a single-phase T-3LI are presented and experimental results, rated 1 kW and 100 kHz, are provided to verify theoretical analysis.