An Overview of Voltage Boosting Techniques and Step-Up DC-DC Converters Topologies for PV Applications

The development of technologies to improve the performance of photovoltaic (PV) module integrated converters (MICs) is fundamental to increase the use of distributed generation systems with photovoltaic power source in large urban centers, mainly for complex residential roofs. For two-stage PV MICs, high step-up DC-DC converters are required to boost the low PV module voltage to a higher voltage, in order to suit the DC bus voltage requirements of grid-tied inverters. Thus, to support researchers interested in developing DC-DC power conversion for PV microinverters, this paper classifies the DC-DC converters according to their operational and constructive characteristics and presents some elementary voltage-boosting techniques to aid in analyzing and understanding more complex topologies. Finally, high step-up DC-DC converters based on magnetic coupling and switched capacitor widely cited by important works related to PV applications are presented, with their principles of operation analysed in a simple and objective way, but sufficient to understand their capability to provide high voltage gain. The approach presented by this paper leads to insight into how to place the energy storage elements to create new topologies of DC-DC converters, so that high voltage gain is achieved, and how to analise the high voltage gain capability of complex topologies