A Switched-Capacitor Multilevel Inverter with Modified Pulse-Width Modulation and Active DC-Link Capacitor Voltage Balancing

Although switched-capacitor (SC) multilevel inverters (MLIs) offer self-voltage balancing of flying capacitors and voltage gain higher than unity, the advantages come at the cost of high current stress and power loss in the SC circuit and dc source. Moreover, the voltage balancing is often restricted to a limited range of modulation indices. Another problem of MLIs with neutral-point clamped (NPC) front end is with dc-link capacitor voltage balancing under unbalanced load conditions, imploring sensor-based closed-loop control. This article proposes a unity gain five-level active-NPC SC-MLI with inrush charging current attenuation and actively balanced dc-link capacitor voltages under all load conditions and over the entire range of modulation index and power factor. The modified pulsewidth modulation (PWM) results in most switches operating at a low switching frequency, minimizing switching losses in the SC circuit. The proposed MLI attains a maximum efficiency of 98.04% at an output power of 510 W. Experiments on a 2 kVA laboratory prototype validate the theoretical analysis. Results from transformerless grid-connected solar photovoltaic (PV) system show that the proposed MLI can inject power into the grid with a unity power factor under conditions of varying irradiance and provide the grid with reactive power as well.