A novel reconfigurable reduced switch multilevel inverter for renewable applications

The use of renewable energy sources is increasing day by day to reduce carbon emissions. The solar PV application is one of the major renewable sources which are being employed all over the world. The need for inverters is also increasing with the increase in renewable energy sources. To improve the efficiency of inverters, reduced switch multilevel inverters are being employed. This article presents a reconfigurable reduced switch multilevel inverter with both symmetrical and asymmetrical operations. Eight unique algorithms have been developed to regulate the output levels, enabling the generation of various voltage levels in the output. The proposed reduced switch topology is employing ten power devices and three DC voltage sources to produce a output varying from 7 to 21 levels. The total standing voltage and cost function of the proposed topology are calculated and found to be 4.5 per unit and 3.14, respectively. The proposed topology is compared with other reduced switch topologies of same level in terms of various parameters and found to be superior to the existing topologies. The loss analysis is conducted using piecewise linear electrical circuit simulation. It indicates a power loss of 60.2 watts with an efficiency of 94.32% for an output power of 1 kilowatt. The efficiency of the proposed topology is calculated for a wider range of output power and is found to be 95.2%. The simulation of proposed topology has been performed in MATLAB/Simulink environment. To validate the simulations results, the proposed topology is performed in a real-time environment with the help of MicroLab Box DSPACE controller. The results proved the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed reconfigurable reduced switch topology with minimum harmonics.