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The objective of this paper is to develop a high step-up isolated converter with two input power sources. The proposed converter has two input ports for simultaneously converting two different input power sources with low voltages to a stable output power with a high voltage. Moreover, the demand of bidirectional power flow, which is dependent on the power management for charging and discharging power storage mechanisms, can also be satisfied in the proposed converter. According to various situations, the operational states of the proposed converter can be divided into three states, including a stand-alone state, a united power supply state, and a charge and discharge state. The effectiveness of the designed circuit topology is verified by experimental results, and the goals of high-efficiency conversion, high step-up ratio, and bidirectional power flow can be achieved by the proposed converter operation. Index Terms--Bidirectional power flow, high efficiency, high step-up ratio, isolation, two input power sources.

This paper mainly focuses on the development of a high-efficiency power conversion system for kilowatt-level stand-alone generation units with a low output voltage, such as photovoltaic modules, fuel cells, and small-scale wind generators, and it aims at having the same output ac voltage, i.e., 110 [V.sub.rms]/ 60 Hz as the utility power for the utilization of a stand-alone power supply. This high-efficiency power conversion system includes one high-efficiency high-step-up dc-dc converter and one soft-switching dc-ac current-source inverter. This dc-dc converter is capable of solving the voltage spike problem while the switch is turned off, and it can achieve the objectives of high efficiency and high voltage gain. Because the techniques of soft switching and voltage clamping are used in the dc-ac current-source inverter, the conversion efficiency could greatly be improved. The effectiveness of the designed circuits is verified by experimentation, and the maximum efficiency of the entire high-efficiency power conversion system is over 91% based on the experimental measurements. Index Terms--Current-source inverter, high step-up, soft switching, stand-alone generation units, voltage clamping.

This study develops a high-performance stand-alone photovoltaic (PV) generation system. To make the PV generation system more flexible and expandable, the backstage power circuit is composed of a high step-up converter and a pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) inverter. In the dc-dc power conversion, the high step-up converter is introduced to improve the conversion efficiency in conventional boost converters to allow the parallel operation of low-voltage PV arrays, and to decouple and simplify the control design of the PWM inverter. Moreover, an adaptive total sliding-mode control system is designed for the voltage control of the PWM inverter to maintain a sinusoidal output voltage with lower total harmonic distortion and less variation under various output loads. In addition, an active sun tracking scheme without any light sensors is investigated to make the PV modules face the sun directly for capturing the maximum irradiation and promoting system efficiency. Experimental results are given to verify the validity and reliability of the high step-up converter, the PWM inverter control, and the active sun tracker for the high-performance stand-alone PV generation system. Index Terms--Active sun tracking scheme, adaptive total sliding-mode control (ATSMC), high step-up converter, photovoltaic (PV) generation system, pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) inverter.

In this paper, a high-efficiency dc-dc converter with high voltage gain and reduced switch stress is proposed. Generally speaking, the utilization of a coupled inductor is useful for raising the step-up ratio of the conventional boost converter. However, the switch surge voltage may be caused by the leakage inductor so that it will result in the requirement of high-voltage-rated devices. In the proposed topology, a three-winding coupled inductor is used for providing a high voltage gain without extreme switch dutycycle and enhancing the utility rate of magnetic core. Moreover, the energy in the leakage inductor is released directly to the output terminal for avoiding the phenomenon of circulating current and the production of switch surge voltage. In addition, the delay time formed with the cross of primary and secondary currents of the coupled inductor is manipulated to alleviate the reverse-recovery current of the output diode. It can achieve the aim of high-efficiency power conversion. Furthermore, the closed-loop control methodology is utilized in the proposed scheme to overcome the voltage drift problem of the power source under the variation of loads. Some experimental results via an example of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell power source with 250-W nominal rating are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed power conversion strategy. Index Terms--DC-DC converter, coupled inductor, fuel cell, proton exchange membrane, reverse recovery.