A Five-Level Single-Phase Grid-Connected Converter for Renewable Distributed Systems

In low-power renewable systems a single-phase grid-connected converter is usually adopted. This paper deals with a novel five-level converter topology that follows this trend. A review of the state of the art of the five-level topologies and a theoretical power loss comparison with the proposed solution is realized. The proposed converter architecture is based on a full-bridge topology with two additional power switches and two diodes connected to the midpoint of the DC Link. Since the two added levels are obtained by the discharge of the two capacitors of the DC Link, the balancing of the midpoint voltage is obtained with a specific PWM strategy. Simulation and experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed solution.