International Conference on Communication and Signal Processing, April 6-8, 2017, India
Design a High-Efficiency and High Voltage Gain
DC–DC Converter for Photo Voltaic Systems
P. Balaji and M. Kowsalya

Abstract—Renewable sources such as photovoltaic modules,
fuel cells or energy storage devices, such as super capacitors or
batteries provide an output voltage supply in the range of about
12-70 VDC. In order to connect grid systems, the voltage level
must be adjusted in accordance with the rules of the electricity
grid in the country. For applications such as attached to network
systems, it is necessary to increase the voltage level resulting in
reduced efficiency. To deal with this problem, this article
proposes a new high-voltage gain, the DC-DC converter based on
the high-efficiency inductor coupled, an intermediate condenser
and the regenerative leak recovery system. The input power
source is first stored in the inductor field and a capacitor coupled
magnetic in an intermediate time loss. A passive retention
network around the primary inductor ensures the recovery of the
trapped energy in the leakage inductance, it leads to an
improvement in the voltage gain and the efficiency of the system.
It is necessary to increase the duty cycle values to obtain a high
voltage gain, which avoids problems such as reverse diode
recovery. Due to the presence of a passive voltage-locking
network reduces the voltage on the switch. This allows the use of
a low voltage switch (with a low "ON-state" resistance),
improving the overall efficiency of the system.
Index Terms—Active clamp, coupled inductor, dc–dc
converter, high voltage gains, high frequency transformer,
interleaved coupled inductor, passive clamp, solar photovoltaics
(PVs), switched capacitor.
I. INTRODUCTION
O verall energy consumption tends to grow steadily.
According to research despite its fluctuating nature and
climate dependence, the capacity of renewable resources can
meet global energy demand. International investment and
R&D efforts focus on reducing the cost of renewable energy
production. These factors have led researchers to renewable
energy sources such as wind, solar photovoltaic (PV) and fuel
cell stacking. Solar photovoltaic energy sources and fuel cells
play a leading role among existing renewable sources poses
significant challenges.
1) Optimal utilization of the source due to their Nonlinear
characteristics [e.g., maximum power point tracking (MPPT)
is required to track maximum available power from a PV
source].
P. Balaji and M. Kowsalya are with the Department of Energy & Power
Electronics, SELECT, VIT University, Vellore
978-1-5090-3800-8/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
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2) Usually operate at low output level (typ.25-50) V due to
security concerns. This makes difficult its application systems
connected to the grid-connected network and even some
stand-alone loads difficult because a high voltage boosting
required.
A direct implication of points 1) and 2) is that the use of a
DC-DC converter [1], [2] is essential for at the front-end, right
through the source as shown in Fig. 1(a). The conventional
DC-DC converters has the following disadvantages.
1) It makes large peak current flow in the input side, and
adversely affects the magnetic components it leads to high
losses.
2) It causes a high voltage to appear across the switch. As
the ON-state resistance of a switch depends on its voltage
rating [RDS (ON) V2DS], the increase in conduction losses. Due to
the large duty cycle, loss of parasitic resistances of inductance
and capacitance also increase.
3) Reverse diode recovery waste becomes a major concern.
Fig. 1. (a) Block diagram of a PV system.
In view of the above, it is evident the need to develop and
use high-gain, high-efficiency dc–dc converters to implement
MPPT and increase the voltage level. Circuits of several
topologies have been proposed in the past [3] - [6] for this
application. They follow one or more of the following
viewpoints to attaining a high voltage at the output of the
converter:
1) Direct DC voltage step-up through a high-frequency
transformer;
2) Use of coupled inductor to utilize the energy storage
capability to increase the voltage level using turns ratio of the
coupled inductor;
3) Use of interleaved inductor coupled facilitates the use of
smaller inductors, current splitting, and more efficient
inductance for higher power applications;
4) Passive clamp circuits to recover leakage energy in the
coupled inductor and to reduce losses in leakage inductance;
 5) Use of intermediate energy storage capacitors as to
increase the voltage gain without increasing duty cycle to high
value;
Fig. 1. (b) Global PV Demand in GW
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section II
describes the overview of DC-DC converter high voltage
topologies. Section III describes the proposed converter.
Section IV discuss about the simulation results. At last, section
V concludes the paper.
II. OVERVIEW OF HIGH VOLTAGE GAIN DC–DC CONVERTER
TOPOLOGIES
The converters shown in Fig. 2 represent some of Voltage
gain topologies that are representative of existing
configurations. Increases DC voltage by using high frequency
Transformer makes a converter simple and easily controllable
providing a high gain. Isolated current-fed DC-DC converters
[Fig. 2 (a)] [7]-[9] are examples of this category. Yet, these
topologies cause high voltage spikes across switch (Due to the
leakage inductance) and a significant ripple in the primary side
transformer current as the turn’s ratio in the high frequency
transformer increases. Isolated systems are relatively
expensive, bulky and generally less effective [10], although
they offer greater security, eliminate problems such as leaks in
the ground Current and can provide multiple outputs between
advantages.
Most of the non-isolated high voltage gain dc-dc power
converters use a coupled inductor (for higher voltage Gain)
[Fig. 2 (b)] [11] unlike a high-frequency transformer used by
the isolated versions [Fig. 2 (a)]. The coupled inductor-based
DC/DC converter has advantages over isolated transformer-
based DC/DC converter in minimize stress, Modelling
procedure of the coupled inductor is described in [12]. For
high power converter applications, interleaved coupled
inductor-based boost converters [13] - [15] have also been
proposed [Fig. 2 (c)].
A demerit of coupled inductor systems is that faced with a
higher leakage inductance, the main switch during the time-
OFF time and current spike during time-ON time, resulting
overall efficiency reduction. The effects of the leakage
inductance they may be removed by means of an active
clamping network indicated in Fig.2 (d) [9], [15], which
provides another way of recovering leakage energy. However,
the active clamping network is not as efficient as a passive
clamp due to conduction losses by power the active clamping
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switch [16]. Active network clamp it consists of a switch with
passive components while the passive clamp network [Fig. 2
(e)] [4], it consists of passive components such as diodes,
capacitors and resistors. The passive circuit it is more popular
to reduce the voltage stress across the converter switch by
recycling leakage energy [17].
The energy recovered from the leakage inductance can be
calculated from the following equation:
(1)
where Llk is the leakage inductance, IL is the inductor
current, and Lm is the magnetizing inductance given by
= (1 − ) ; = (2)
where k is the coupling coefficient and L is the inductance.
Voltage across clamp capacitor C can be calculated from (1)
= (3)
where C and VC are the clamping capacitance and clamp
voltage, respectively.
Voltage gain of the converter can be increased without
increasing the duty cycle of the switch by connecting an
intermediate capacitor in series with the inductor Fig. 2(f)
[18], [19]. The intermediate energy storage capacitor with
coupled inductor charges in parallel and discharges in series
with the coupled inductor secondary
Keeping in mind the merits and demerits of the various
schemes described in preceding paragraphs, a novel topology
has been proposed in this paper that achieves high voltage
through a coupled inductor connected in interleaved manner
that charges an intermediate buffer capacitor and a passive
clamp network to recover the leakage energy. Coupled
inductor leads to the incorporation of “turn’s ratio” into the
gain expression that leads to high efficiency without
increasing the duty ratio. As compared to existing high-gain
dc–dc converters, the number of passive components used in
the proposed converter is less, which reduces the cost and
improves the efficiency. Though the proposed converter is
applicable to any low voltage source application (e.g., solar
PV, fuel cell stack, battery), this paper focuses only on the
solar PV source. All the details of this work are presented in
the subsequent sections of this paper.
III. DESCRIPTION OF THE PROPOSED CONVERTER
The conversion efficiency of photovoltaic solar energy is
quite low (approx.12% -25%) [24]. Therefore, it is essential to
use energy conversion system to use generated PV to
maximum. The proposed high-gain dc–dc converter
configuration is shown in Fig. 3. It consists of one passive
clamp network, a coupled inductor (L1, L2), and an
intermediate capacitor apart from other components. The
symbol VPV
 Fig. 2. Circuit diagrams of the high voltage gain dc–dc converters: (a) isolated current-fed boost converter [8]; (b) coupled inductor boost converter [11];
(c) interleaved coupled inductor boost converter [14]; (d) active clamp converter [9]; (e) passive clamp converter [4]; and (f) intermediate energy storage
capacitor-based converter [18].

represents the PV voltage applied to the circuit. S is the main

switch of the proposed converter. The coupled inductor’s
primary and secondary inductors are denoted by L1 and L2. C1
and D1 represent the passive clamp network across L1. The
capacitor CO is the output capacitor while D3 is the output
diode. The voltage VO is the average (dc) output across the
load. The intermediate energy storage capacitor C2 and the
feedback diode D2 are connected on the secondary side. The
gain ratio n is given by
= (4)
where VL1 and VL2 represent the voltages across inductors
L1 and L2.
Fig. 3. Circuit diagram of proposed dc–dc converter
Mode 1[t0 − t1]: The switch (S) is switched on at the
beginning of the converter operation. The current flows
Mode 3 [t2 − t3]: Thus begins by turning off the main switch S.
through the switch and the primary side of the coupled The parasitic capacitance of the switch S is charged by the ma-
inductor (L1) energizing the magnetizing inductance (Lm) of
gnetization of the current through the inductor L1. The diode
the coupled inductor. The current path as shown in Fig. 4 (a).
D2 is forward biased and current continues flow to this current
The two diodes D1 and D3 are reverse biased, while D2 is path as shown Fig 4(c). The magnetizing inductance of current
forward biased during this mode. The intermediate capacitor
for this mode is given by the following equation
C2 is charged by D2 with L2 and the capacitor C1. If the
voltage at the terminals of the intermediate capacitor (C2)
becomes equal to the sum of the voltages between L2 and C1, ( )= ( − )+ ( ) (7)
the diode D2 goes OFF. The current through Lm (i Lm) in this
mode can be obtained using the following relationship: Mode 4 [t3 − t4]: This mode starts after the end of recovery of
leakage energy from inductor L1. Diode D1 now becomes
( )= ( − )+ ( ) (5) reverse biased diode D3 remains forward biased in this mode.
The current flowing from input side to output side to provide
the load as shown in Fig. 4(d). The iLm current through the
Mode 2 [t1 − t2]: This mode starts by turn off the main switch
secondary inductor (L2) is given by the following equation
S. The parasitic capacitor of switch is charged by the
magnetizing current flows through the inductor L1. The Diode
D2 remains forward biased and current continues to flow ( )= ( − )+ ( ) (8)
through this. The current path in this mode is shown in the fig.
4(b). The magnetizing inductance of current for this mode is Mode 5 [t4 − t0]: This mode begins by turning ON switch
given by S. The leakage inductor energizes quickly using the full
( )= ( − )+ ( ) (6) magnetizing current while the parasitic capacitance across the
switch discharges in this mode.

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 The two diodes D1 and D2 are in reverse biased condition.
The current flow path in this mode is shown in Fig. 4(e). This
mode ends when diode D3 becomes reverse biased and current
flow through inductor L2 changes direction. The secondary
inductor current (iLm) continues to flow in this mode and
current is given by

( )= ( − )+ ( ) (9)

Fig. 5. Typical waveforms during CCM operation.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

The high-gain dc–dc converter, shown in Fig. 3, is
implemented in hardware in order to validate its operational
principle as explained in Section III. A set of experimental
plots obtained from this laboratory prototype are included in
this section. Texas Instruments’ controller “PICCOLO
F28069” has been used to control the proposed dc–dc
converter. The details of the components used for the
experiments with the laboratory prototype of the proposed dc–
dc converter are given in Table I. The system specifications of
the proposed converter developed in the laboratory are given
in Table II.

TABLE I
SPECIFICATIONS OF THE LABORATORY PROTOTYPE
CONVERTER

Fig. 4. Various modes of operation during CCM:

(a) Mode 1; (b) Mode2; (c) Mode 3; (d) Mode 4; and
(e) Mode 5.

Fig. 6. DC Converter output

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 TABLE II
KEY CIRCUIT VARIABLES AND ANALYTICAL RESULTS
V. CONCLUSION
The high-gain, high-efficiency converter proposed in this
paper is highly suitable for low output voltage sources (e.g.
Solar PV, fuel cell stack, and battery. High voltage gain is
achieved without using extreme duty cycle values, which is a
big advantage over conventional step-up converters. One of
the reasons for high efficiency in the proposed converter is
reduction in the switching loss during turn-on due to low loss
switching. The Euro efficiency and CEC efficiency
Euro efficiency = (0.03 × 90% + 0.06 × 93% + 0.13 × 95%
+0.1 × 96% + 0.48 × 97% + 0.2 × 96%) = 96%
CEC efficiency = (0.04 × 90% + 0.05 × 93% + 0.12×95%
+0.21× 96% + 0.53 × 97% + 0.05 × 96%) = 96.02%.
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