An international research group has developed a new kind of Aalborg inverter for high-power electronics applications. They claim it has lower ripple content and better system performance.
Aalborg inverters are devices that were originally created by scientists at Aalborg University in Denmark. They are known to offer several advantages, such as high efficiency, a wide range of input voltages, and minimum voltage drops for the filtering inductors. Their inventors have described them as “Boost in Boost, Buck in Buck” inverters, in reference to the fact that only one power stage works at a high frequency to achieve the minimum switching loss.
The scientists described their findings in “Design of advanced Aalborg inverter for extracting maximum power from renewable energy sources tied with autonomous grid system,” which was recently published in IET Power Electronics. They explained that Aalborg inverters are most suitable for integrating power grid systems with photovoltaics. The devices have a lower number of switches than conventional, voltage-source inverters and can reportedly enhance PV system performance by reducing switching losses.
The proposed inverter design is purely based on the buck converter and boosts converter operation.
“The inverter works on the single-phase inverter topology with DC/AC transformer with fewer operations,” the scientists said. “In this phase, the system's power stage starts to work at a minimum voltage drop across the inductor coil, and frequency at a higher level is attained by enhancing the system's efficiency and reliability.”
The device uses an input LC filter to create the conditions for the ripple present in the DC input source to be always lesser than that of a conventional inverter.
“The total input value of the capacitance starts to decrease with the support of the LC filter,” the academics said. “At higher inputs, the smoothing capacitor will be inserted across the system to support the energy balance at the system for a double line higher frequency.”
The research team includes scientists from India's Kumarasamy College of Engineering, the Islamic Azad University in Iran, the University of Santiago in Chile, and China's Harbin Institute of Technology.
“The effectiveness of the inverter can be analyzed by testing the Aalborg inverter with various irradiance levels of the solar photovoltaic array,” the scientists concluded.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
Will the Aalborg be able to maintain a load above 1.5 Mega watts a day?