MORE | Summer 2023

Buck-Derived Active Buffer-Based Energy Storage System with Enhanced Reliability for Solar Microinverter

This work is aimed toward improving equipment reliability and power density of critical solar photovoltaic microinverter technology by replacing old DC link capacitor banks commonly comprised entirely of passive electrolytic capacitors (ECs), which detriment the achievable power density and reliability of the microinverter. These DC link EC banks, however, provide an essential energy storage function necessary for transformation of DC source power to supplied AC power to electric power consumers. To improve upon both fallbacks of traditional DC link EC banks, a suitable technology replacement known as the pulsating power buffer is investigated and optimized for a novel microinverter system.