A Current Shaping Method for PV-AC Module

DCM-Flyback Inverter under CCM Operation

Young-Hyok Ji
1
, Doo-Yong Jung
1
, Jae-Hyung Kim
1
, Tae-Won Lee
2
, and Chung-Yuen Won
1
1
Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, South Korea
2
Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Suwon, South Korea
Abstract In the grid interconnected photovoltaic power
generation system including PV-AC module system, the
output current have to be sinusoidal synchronized with the
grid voltage. Concerning the voltage-controlled current-
source modification requirement and the characteristics of
flyback topology, boundary or discontinuous conduction
mode operations are suitable for the PV-AC module flyback
inverter. However, the flyback inverter can be operated in
continuous conduction mode (CCM) due to its operating
conditions in spite of it is designed to operate under
boundary or discontinuous conduction mode. Unfortunately,
it causes unintended distortion to output current. In this
paper, a current shaping method to reduce the output
current distortion for the DCM-flyback inverter is proposed.
Even though the flyback inverter operates under CCM, the
output current distortion can be reduced by the unfolding
H-bridge switching technique.
Index Terms Photovoltaic AC module systems, Flyback
inverter, Unfolding H-bridge.
I. INTRODUCTION
Since the conventional photovoltaic (PV) power
generation systems, several photovoltaic modules are
connected in series and parallel to form an array and feed
energy to a single centralized inverter or to a few parallel
string inverters, have some drawbacks on mismatch
problems, the use of several decentralized grid-connected
PV systems is quite more appropriate as they can also be
easily installed on buildings.
The decentralized grid-connected PV systems are
usually named PV-AC module. In the PV-AC module
systems, the output of the PV module is directly
connected to the utility grid through a module integrated
converter (MIC) [1]. In the AC module system, the
maximum power point (MPP) of each PV module can be
tracked individually. Thereby the overall utilization of
solar energy can be increased. And the potential arcing
problems and cost problems due to DC wiring can also be
avoided.[2][3] The AC module system has become the
trend for the future PV system development and a number
of single-phase power inverter topologies for AC module
system have been reviewed recently[4][5].
Among the topologies of various configurations, the
flyback inverter topology has been recognized as an
attractive solution for low cost application because of the
simplicity of its configuration and control. This topology
allows the required voltage level step-up, the maximum
power point tracking (MPPT) and current shaping all to
be performed in a single power conversion stage with
minimum component counts. However, to become the
AC module system using flyback type inverter viable,
further improvements including the power conversion
efficiency improvement, system cost reduction and
overall reliability increment are required. Thereby various
approaches have been performed by researchers [6]-[8].
The basic idea of flyback inverter for PV-AC module
system is to make the flyback inverter as a sinusoidal
current source synchronized with grid voltage. It can be
achieved by operating the flyback inverter under
discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) which is hard to
increase power conversion efficiency due to its large
RMS and peak current values [9]. Even though higher
efficiency can be achieved under continuous conduction
mode (CCM), the output current of the flyback inverter
can be distorted and some specialized techniques for
current shaping are required to overcome this problem
under CCM operation [10]-[12].
The flyback inverter which has an unfolding H-bridge
is applied in this paper as shown in Fig. 1. The design
consideration of this configuration will be presented in
the next section. The major objective of the present work
is to reduce the distortion of output current of DCM-
flyback inverter by the unfolding H-bridge switching,
even if the flyback inverter is operated under CCM due to
the variation of input condition (i.e. photovoltaic output
voltage and current).
II. FLYBACK INVERTER CONFIGURATION AND ANALYSIS
PV
Grid
m
L
p
Q
in
C
s
D
k
L
a
Q
a
C
f
C
f
L
Active Clamped Flyback Converter Unfolding H-Bridge
s
C
1 s
Q
2 s
Q
3 s
Q
4 s
Q
1:n
Fig. 1. Configuration of the flyback inverter
sp
Q
sp
D
sn
Q
sn
D
f
C
f
L
p
Q
in
C
k
L
a
Q
a
C
m
L
Fig. 2. Configuration of the conventional flyback inverter
8th International Conference on Power Electronics - ECCE Asia
May 30-June 3, 2011, The Shilla Jeju, Korea
978-1-61284-957-7/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE
[WeP1-030]
The configuration of the flyback inverter used in this
paper is shown in Fig. 1. The flyback inverter used in this
paper is comprised of two-stages. The active-clamped
flyback converter converts the DC output of PV module
to rectified-DC synchronized with grid voltage. Also, the
shape of output current of the flyback inverter is
determined by the switching of flyback converter.
An active-clamped circuit which composed of clamp
capacitor, C
a
, and an auxiliary switch, Q
a
, is applied to
the flyback converter to reduce the voltage stress of
flyback main switch, Q
p
, and to increase power
conversion efficiency [13]. The clamp or snubber circuit
is an important factor which determines the performance
of the flyback based circuit. However, the active clamp
technique is not a dominant factor for output current
shaping that focused in this paper. Thus, the active clamp
technique will not be considered in this paper.
The unfolding H-bridge stage determines the direction
of output current to be matched with grid voltage polarity.
The unfolding switches Q
1
and Q
4
are turned-on and the
Q
2
and Q
3
are turned-off during the positive period of
grid voltage. During the negative period, the unfolding
switches are operated oppositely.
As already known, power conversion systems for
photovoltaic applications have to track the MPP. In the
flyback inverter shown in Fig. 1, the maximum power
point tracking (MPPT) can be performed by peak point
variation of the switching reference. Thus, MPPT
determines the amplitude of output current reference.
Because of the unfolding H-bridge determines only the
direction of the output current conventionally, the flyback
converter stage covers the output current shaping as well
as the MPPT. Thus, the flyback converter switching is
determined by rectified sinusoidal reference which
synchronized with the phase of grid voltage.
( )
*
e
FB
i t
g
v
p
Q
1 s
Q
2 s
Q
Lm
i
Qp
i
1 Qs
i
2 Qs
i
g
i
Fig. 3. Key waveforms for flyback inverter operation
A. Unfolding H-Bridge Configuration
As mentioned above, the flyback inverter used in this
paper is comprised of two stages (i.e. the flyback
converter stage and unfolding H-bridge), while the
conventional flyback inverter looks like a single-stage
power conversion system as shown in Fig. 2. However,
fundamental operating theory is same, and the control
schemes are also same to each other. Fig. 3 shows the
operating waveforms.
The flyback inverter composed of two stages has some
advantages to get higher power conversion efficiency due
to its H-bridge based unfolding method, while the single-
stage configured flyback inverter is a cost effective
solution for photovoltaic AC module systems.
In the single-stage flyback inverter in Fig. 2, a three
winding transformer is required. It means that larger
winding area is required even though the turns-ratio of
the transformer, n, is same in Fig. 1, and Fig. 2. Thus, the
total loss of transformer used in single-stage flyback
inverter can be much larger than that in the two-stage
flyback inverter.
On the other hand, the major difference between the
unfolding H-bridge used in this paper and the
conventional unfolding stage shown in Fig. 2 is appeared
in the voltage stress of the secondary switching devices.
In the Fig. 2, as already known, the maximum voltage of
the secondary active switches Q
sp
and Q
sn
is equal to
2V
g(pk)
, where V
g(pk)
is the peak value of the grid voltage.
Actually, the required voltage rating of the secondary
active switches can be higher than 2V
g(pk)
due to the
oscillation or ringing of the secondary current. In case of
the 220V
rms
grid applications, the voltage rating of
secondary switches recommended to be higher than 800V.
Unfortunately, higher voltage rating of the switching
devices causes larger conduction losses.
The unfolding H-bridge requires four active switching
devices as shown in Fig. 1, and it includes four drivers
which increase system costs. However, the maximum
voltage of the unfolding switching device can be a half of
that of the conventional unfolding stage shown in Fig. 2.
Thus, in the power conversion efficiency point of view,
the unfolding H-bridge can be more useful solution.
As known, the output current of the flyback inverter, i
g
,
can be represented as (1).
(
1 1
= =
} }
g Lf Cf g
f f
i v dt v v dt
L L
)
(1)
where L
f
is filter inductance, v
Lf
is voltage of the filter
inductor L
f
.and vg is the grid voltage. During the positive
period of grid voltage, the voltage of filter capacitor, v
Cf
,
is equal to link voltage, v
Cs
, due to the unfolding bridge
operation. If the voltage drop of unfolding H-bridge is
neglected, the i
g
can be written as;
(
1
=
}
g Cs g
f
i v v
L
)
dt (2)
Consequently, it is obvious that the output current can
be controlled by the link voltage, v
Cs
, under the normal
unfolding bridge operation.
B. Link Voltage Comparison between DCM and CCM
Concerning the operation of the unfolding H-bridge,
the output current can be controlled by the link voltage.
As already known, the voltage transfer function of the
flyback converter is affected by the conduction mode of
magnetizing current.
Fig. 4 (a) and (b) shows the magnetizing current, i
Lm
,
of the transformer during DCM and CCM operation,
respectively. Concerning the operation theory of the
flyback topology, the secondary currents, is, due to the
conduction modes can be represented as Fig. 4 (c) and (d)
where the I
o
is the average output current of the flyback
stage during one switching cycle. In here, the effect of
active clamp circuit is neglected for simplicity of analysis.
The average output current of the flyback stage, I
o
, for
each conduction mode can be represented as follows;
( )
2
,
1
2
= =
pv DCM
o
o DCM
L m s
V D
V
I
R L f V
o
(3)
( ) (
,
1
1
2
= = +
o
o CCM CCM A B
L
V
) I D i i
R
(4)
where the V
o
means the average link voltage across the
link capacitor, C
s
, during one switching cycle. From the
voltage-second balance, and the above equations, the
average link voltage for each conduction mode can be
represented as follows;
,
2
=
g
o DCM pv DCM
m s g
V
V V D
L f I
(5)
( )
,
1
=

pv CCM
o CCM
CCM
nV D
V
D
(6)
where the V
g
and I
g
mean the root-mean-square value of
the grid voltage and current, respectively. The f
s
is
switching frequency of the flyback main switch Q
p
and
the L
m
means the magnetizing inductance.
Lm
i
t
0
s
T
DCM
D
r
D
w
D
Lm
i
t
0
s
T
CCM
D 1
CCM
D
(a) DCM magnetizing current (b) CCM magnetizing current
s
i
t
0
s
T
sp
I
o
I
s
i
t
0
s
T
A
i
o
I
B
i
r
D
w
D
(c) DCM secondary current (d) CCM secondary current
Fig. 4. Magnetizing and secondary currents under DCM and CCM
Design of the magnetizing inductance is an important
factor to determine the conduction mode of flyback
operation. Refer to DCM requirements, the magnetizing
inductance, L
m
, have to be satisfied by (7) for PV-AC
module application.
( )
2
4
s
pv DCM
m
g g s
V D
L
V I f
(7)
The turns-ratio of the transformer, n, is also a
dominant factor which determines power conversion
efficiency as well as the voltage stress of the flyback
main switch Q
p
. More detailed design consideration will
not be taken into account in this paper. However, the
flyback inverter used in this paper has been designed
through careful analysis and designed consideration. The
design parameters are listed on Table I.
TABLE I
FLYBACK INVERTER DESIGN PARAMETERS
Parameter Symbol Value Unit
Max. Handling Power P
max
250 W
Nominal PV Power P
pv
200 W
Nominal Input Voltage V
pv
30.3 V
Nominal Input Current I
pv
60.6 A
Nominal Grid Voltage V
g
220 V
rms
Transformer Turns-ratio n 1:4 -
Magnetizing Inductance L
m
11 uH
Switching Frequency f
s
50 kHz
Link Capacitance C
s
150 nF
Output Filter (Ind./Cap.) L
f
/C
f
5.7 / 33 mH / nF
Through the above equations from (5) to (7), and the
specified design parameters on Table I, the difference of
link voltage between DCM and CCM operation can be
represented as Fig. 5. As shown, the link voltage under
DCM operation is proportion to the duty ratio of the main
switch, linearly.
0
100
200
300
400
500
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
L
i
n
k

V
o
l
t
a
g
e
,

V
o
[
V
]
Duty Ratio, D
DCM CCM
Fig. 5. Voltage transfer function for DCM and CCM
Concerning the linear characteristics of link voltage
under DCM operation, the sinusoidal output current can
be fed to the grid through the rectified sinusoidal duty
ratio variation in DCM operation. If the power loss is
neglected, required duty can be simply determined by (8).
( ) ( ) 2 sin e e =
pv m s
DCM
pv
I L f
D t
V
t (8)
From the consideration of boundary duty ratio and the
equation (8), following condition has to be satisfied to
ensure the DCM operation.
( )
2 2
s
+
pv m s g
pv
pv g
I L f V
V
nV V
(9)
If the (9) is not satisfied, the flyback inverter is
operated under CCM. And it causes geometrical
increment to the link voltage due to the exponential
characteristic of the voltage transfer function for CCM.
Consequently, it can cause the serious distortion to the
output current of the flyback inverter using unfolding
technique.
C. Design Point Consideration for DCM Flyback
When the flyback inverter for PV-AC module system
is designed, the characteristics of PV module should be
considered. As shown in Fig. 6, there are many PV
modules in the industry, and the PV modules come in a
broad range of its output characteristics (i.e. MPP voltage,
MPP current, open circuit voltage and short circuit
current) depending on manufacturers, and material
characteristics even though the maximum output power
ratings are same to each other. Fig. 6 shows the MPP
voltage distribution of about 1800 commercial PV
modules rated from 140W to 260W power of about 90
manufacturers.
For the general-purpose flyback inverter design, the
responsible MPP voltage range can be much wider
because the flyback inverter should cover various PV
modules which have lower power ratings than designed.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to extend the input
voltage range because it can cause power losses. It means
that the input operating current can be limited by the
characteristics of PV module. The input operating current
is limited by (10).
2
2 2
| |
s

+
\ .
pv g
pv
m s pv g
V V
I
L f nV V
|
|
(10)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
140 150 160 170 180 190 200 210 220 230 240 250 260
M
P
P

V
o
l
t
a
g
e

[
V
]
Maximum Output Power[W]
Fig. 6. MPP voltage distribution of commercial PV modules
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
P
h
o
t
o
v
o
l
t
a
i
c

V
o
l
t
a
g
e
,

V
p
v
[
V
]
Photovoltaic Current, Ipv, [A]
D
=
0
.
5
D
=
0
.
4
D
=
0
.
3
D
=
0
.
2
D
=
0
.
1
Fig. 7. Operating region comparison for PV modules A and B for the
identical output power
This limitation is reported in Fig. 7. If the PV module
connected to flyback inverter is not satisfied with above
limitation, the flyback inverter can be operated under
CCM, even though the maximum power of connected PV
module is lower than the power handling capacity of the
flyback inverter. For example, if a flyback inverter which
has 250W power rating is designed, it should cover 200W
PV modules. However, if the design is performed refer to
PV module A shown in Fig. 6, the flyback inverter can
be operated in CCM when the PV module B is
connected to the flyback inverter despite of the maximum
output power of PV module B is 200W (i.e. lower than
that of PV module A). Actually, it is because the MPP
current of PV module B is larger than that of A.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
P
h
o
t
o
v
o
l
t
a
i
c

V
o
l
t
a
g
e
,

V
p
v
[
V
]
Photovoltaic Current, Ipv, [A]
1
0
0
m
W
/
c
m

8
0
m
W
/
c
m

6
0
m
W
/
c
m

4
0
m
W
/
c
m

D
=
0
.
5
D
=
0
.
5
D
=
0
.
4
D
=
0
.
4
D
=
0
.
3
D
=
0
.
3
D
=
0
.
2
D
=
0
.
1
Fig. 8. Effects on the operation mode by the design point selection
On the other hand, the design point is forced lower by
the designers who want to get higher European-efficiency.
Because of the European-efficiency has the maximum
weight on the half load, sometimes, designers set the
design point to about 75~80% irradiance. Concerning the
maximum efficiency of the PV power conditioning
system is appeared on 70% of the design point, the
maximum efficiency can be achieved on the vicinity of a
half load. Actually, because of the full power irradiance
condition (i.e. 100mW/cm
2
) is not common, this
technique is widely used.
In the DCM based flyback inverter design, however,
the design point selection technique has to be carefully
considered. Because of the magnetizing inductance is
determined by the design point selection, the design point
variation can cause the CCM operation when the full
power irradiance is applied to the PV module. For
example, as shown in Table 1, the nominal PV power is
set as 200W, in spite of the maximum handling power is
250W. The magnetizing inductance for 200W design is
about 11uH, and for 250W design, the magnetizing
inductance has to be set as lower than 9uH. In case of the
design point is set as 200W, the flyback inverter can be
operated under CCM when the 100% irradiance is
applied. This can be confirmed from the Fig. 8.
III. CURRENT SHAPING METHOD UNDER CCM
As mentioned above, the DCM flyback inverter can be
operated under CCM due to the operating point variation
of the connected PV module. And the CCM operation
causes unintended output current distortion. To reduce
this output current distortion, a current shaping method
using the unfolding H-bridge modulation is proposed in
this paper.
A. CCM Fault Detection Method
To ensure the performance of the proposed current
shaping method, a detection method for CCM fault is
required. To avoid additional cost increase, the CCM
detection is performed by software without any additional
current detection circuit.
Because of the output of DCM flyback inverter is
shown like as a current source, the output current is
controlled by the switching reference for flyback main
switch. From the duty-ratio equation shown in (8) the
switching reference, i
*
FB
, for flyback main switch can be
represented as (11).
( ) ( )
*
2 sin e e =
pv m s
FB m
pv
I L f
i t K t
V
(11)
where the K
m
indicates that the peak value of the carrier
waveform for the flyback main switch. In general, the K
m
is determined by switching frequency in the software.
Concerning that only the three detection points (i.e. V
pv
,
I
pv
for MPPT and v
g
for grid phase detection) are required
in the flyback inverter, the CCM detection has to be
performed by the three detected-values and the value of
design parameters. From (9) and (11), it is obvious that
the CCM operation can be detected when the (12) is
satisfied.
*
>
+
m g
FB
pv g
K v
i
nV v
(12)
where the n is turns-ratio of the implemented transformer.
B. Unfolding H-Bridge Modulation Method
In general, during the unfolding H-bridge switches are
turned on and off synchronized with the grid frequency,
the voltage of output filter capacitor is equal to the link
voltage. Thereby the link voltage is a dominant factor to
determine the output current of the flyback inverter.
In this paper, however, once the CCM operating
condition is detected by (12), the unfolding H-bridge is
allowed to be operated as PWM inverter with high
frequency switching. In this state, because of PWM
inverter characteristic is same as a buck converter, the
average value of filter capacitor voltage, V
Cf,UBS
can be
represented as (13).
( )
, ,
1
= =

pv FB
Cf UBS o CCM UB UB
FB
nV D
V V D D
D
(13)
where D
FB
is the duty-ratio of flyback converter main
switch, D
UB
is the duty-ratio of unfolding H-bridge.
Once the (13) is equal to (5), the distortion of output
current can be rejected even though the flyback converter
stage is operated under CCM. Thus, required duty-ratio
of unfolding H-bridge can be derived as (14).
( ) 1
2
=
g
UB FB
m s pv pv
V
D
n L f V I
D (14)
From (8) and (14), the variation of unfolding H-bridge
duty-ratio according to the time variation can be derived
as (15).
( )
( )
*
1
e
e
| |
=
|
|
\ .
FB C
UB
m pv pv
i t K
D t
K V I
(15)
where the V
pv
and I
pv
are average values of detected input
voltage and current, respectively. And the K
C
is a design
coefficient which is determined by the design parameters
as defined in (16).
2
=
g
C
m s
V
K
n L f
(16)
From (15) and (16), the required PWM reference for
the unfolding H-bridge can be represented as (17).
( ) ( ) ( )
* *
e e =
C
UB m FB
pv pv
K
i t K i t
V I
(17)
As represented in (17), the PWM reference for
unfolding H-bridge can be determined by the detected
input voltage, current and the switching reference for
flyback main switch which is determined by current
controller. The relationship between the unfolding H-
bridge switching signal and the flyback switching signal
can be represented as Fig. 9. The carrier signal for
unfolding H-bridge modulation is not perfectly same as
the carrier signal for flyback switching. The phase
difference has to be existed to avoid the drastic increase
of the link voltage due to the simultaneous turn-off of the
flyback main switch and the unfolding switch.
m
K
C m
pv pv
K K
V I
t
( )
*
UB
i t
( )
*
FB
i t
/2
p
Q
,
S1 S4
Q Q
,
S2 S3
Q Q
t
Fig. 9. Unfolding H-bridge modulation method
The unfolding H-bridge modulation method proposed
in this paper can be easily implemented by software
without any additional hardware components. The overall
control block diagram for proposed flyback inverter
including the current shaping method is shown in Fig. 10.
+
_
MPPT
| sin |
Carrier
,
S1 S4
Q Q
pv
I
pv
V
*
pv
I PI
control
*
FB
I
PLL
( ) sin t
t g
v
*
FB
i
p
Q
*
UB
i
pv
I
CCM Fault
Detection
eq. (12)
,
S2 S3
Q Q
Carrier
Fault Signal
Unfolding
Modulation
Method
eq. (17)
Line frequency
Switching
*
FB
i
Fig. 10. Overall control block diagram including unfolding H-bridge
modulation method proposed in this paper
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
To verify the validity of proposed current shaping
method, PSIM simulation is used in this paper. The
simulation parameters are same as the design parameters
shown in Table I.
Fig. 11 shows the output current distortion of the
conventional flyback inverter. As shown in Fig. 11(c) and
(d), the link voltage of the flyback inverter is drastically
changed by the conduction mode of the magnetizing
current. In this region, the output current is distorted as
shown in Fig. 11(b).
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
Output current distortion
CCM
Fig. 11. Output current distortion due to CCM operation
(a) Grid voltage, (b) Output current of flyback inverter,
(c) Link-voltage, (d) Magnetizing current
Fig. 12 shows the performance of CCM fault detection
method and switching reference generation technique
which are represented as (12) and (17), respectively. In
the Fig. 12, the unfolding H-bridge modulation is not
applied to confirm the performance of CCM fault
detection method. From the Fig. 12(c), it is confirmed
that the proposed method can detect the CCM fault
properly. Fig. 12(d) shows the switching references for
flyback main switch, and for unfolding H-bridge
modulation. The peak value of both carrier waveforms
determined by the switching frequency, K
m
, is also
presented in Fig. 12(d).
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
CCM
m
K
( )
*
UB
i t
( )
*
FB
i t
Fault Flag
Fig. 12. Performance of the CCM detection method
(a) Output current, (b) Magnetizing current
(c) CCM fault flag, (d) Switching references
Fig. 13 shows the performance of the unfolding H-
bridge modulation proposed in this paper. In this method,
once the fault flag shown in Fig. 12 (c) is set, the
unfolding H-bridge can be operated as PWM inverter as
shown in Fig. 13(b). Fig. 13(c) and (d) is link-voltage and
output current, respectively. From the comparison
between Fig. 12(a) and Fig. 13(d), it is obvious that the
output current distortion can be reduced through the
unfolding bridge modulation.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
CCM
m
K
( )
*
UB
i t
( )
*
FB
i t
Reduced current distortion
Unfolding H-bridge Modulation
Fig. 13. Performance of the unfolding H-bridge modulation
(a) Switching references, (b) Q
s1
switching signal
(c) Link voltage, (d) Output current
However, the link voltage can be increased by the
modulation method. This can be obviously confirmed
through the comparison between Fig. 11(c) and Fig. 13(c).
Thus, some overvoltage protection scheme for the link
voltage is recommended to ensure the safety of flyback
inverter.
Fig. 14. Output current FFT comparison. (under CCM condition)
(a) Conventional unfolding, (b) Proposed modulation method
Fig. 14 shows the comparison result between the
conventional unfolding method and the proposed unfold-
ing modulation method. From this figure, it is shown that
the 3
rd
harmonic component is considerably reduced by
using the proposed unfolding modulation method.
V. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, DCM flyback inverter which is
composed of an active-clamped flyback converter stage
and an unfolding H-bridge stage is applied. The DCM
operated flyback inverter has been recognized as an
attractive solution for PV AC module system due to its
simple controller and circuit configuration. However,
despite of the flyback inverter is designed to operate
under DCM, the flyback inverter can be operated under
CCM due to the operating condition for the connected PV
module. Unfortunately, it causes unintended distortion to
output current.
In this paper, before the proposed unfolding H-bridge
modulation is presented, a performance comparison of
DCM and CCM is performed for a close analysis for the
problem. As shown, the problem can be occurred in case
of not only connected PV module has lower voltage and
higher current characteristics than expected, but also the
flyback magnetizing inductance is designed focused on
the European-efficiency. To overcome the unintended
output current distortion, an unfolding H-bridge
modulation method is proposed. Once the CCM condition
is detected, the unfolding H-bridge is operated like as a
PWM inverter. The CCM detection and switching
reference determination techniques are included and
presented. The validity of proposed current shaping
method is verified by the simulation results.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by Energy Power Research
Center of Samsung Electro-mechanics Co. Ltd.
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