A Novel Loaded-Resonant Converter For The Application Of Solar (DC) -TO-DC Energy Conversions

Renewable energy generation systems, based on photovoltaic sources, currently represent the most suitable solution, for low power levels, to reduce the energy consumption produced by oil and gas. Moreover, they are becoming more and more attractive as the price per watt of the photovoltaic modules is decreasing. However, the conversion efficiency of commercial photovoltaic modules is still rather low so it is particularly important to be able to achieve, in every operating situation, the maximum possible energy. The paper focuses on-grid-connected, photovoltaic conversion systems. In this frame, different structures of resonant DC-DC converters, which allow reduced switching losses, are analyzed accounting the specific behavior of Photovoltaic sources. Many advantages that resonant power conversion has over conventionally adopted pulse-width modulation include a low electromagnetic interference, low switching losses, small volume, and light weight of components due to a high switching frequency, high efficiency, and low reverse recovery losses in diodes owing to a low di/dt at switching instant. This work presents a novel loaded-resonant converter for direct current (dc)-to-dc energy conversion to photovoltaic system. The proposed topology comprises a half-bridge inductor-capacitor inductor (L-C-L) resonant inverter and a bridge rectifier. Output stage of the proposed loaded-resonant converter is filtered by a low-pass filter. A prototype solar cell energy converter circuit with the novel loaded-resonant converter designed for a load is developed and tested to verify its analytical