Abstract

The technical challenges associated with distributed generation along with the increased adoption of electric vehicles has motivated the development of new configurations for dc microgrids. In this paper, a novel unidirectional multi-port power converter acts as the building block for interfacing different configurations of PV energy conversion systems, allowing it to reach high efficiency for a wide range of input power. Additionally, depending on the connection of the sources, the converter can act as a buck-boost converter or a buck converter, where the former offers wider input voltage range and the latter offers higher efficiency. Additionally, a sum/difference control scheme suitable for both configurations is presented. Simulation results are provided for a 32 kW PV system, establishing a comparison between the two configurations and validating the proposed topology and control scheme.