A New Soft Switching Dual Input Converter for Renewable Energy Systems

This paper proposes a new soft switching dual input converter for renewable energy systems. Multi-input converters are produced by combining discrete converters. These converters reduce the number of circuit elements, cost, volume and weight of the converter and provide a constant output power in different weather conditions. Furthermore, soft switching techniques can be applied to increase efficiency. In this paper, a Zero Voltage Transition (ZVT) dual input boost converter is presented. Only one auxiliary circuit is used to provide the soft switching condition for all of the semiconductor elements. The proposed converter, which is simulated by ORCAD software, is theoretically analyzed. To confirm the validity of the theoretical analysis, a prototype of proposed converter was constructed. Simulation and experimental results confirm the theoretical analysis. An efficiency comparison shows a one percent improvement at nominal loads.