A reliable low cost power electronics interface for photovoltaic energy systems

Performance, efficiency, cost of the power converters and their associated control, are important considerations for the commercialization of renewable power sources. In view of this, this paper proposes a reliable and low cost power electronics interface for photovoltaic energy systems, using a single DSP controller. The proposed approach will achieve the following: (a) integrate the DC-DC converter control and inverter control by utilizing a single, low cost, fixed point Digital Signal Processor (DSP controller), (b) implement a fast converging MPP tracking method in the DC-DC converter stage and (c) reduce the size of the DC-link capacitor by using a modified pulse width modulation (PWM) technique for single phase inverter control.