Methodology for product design of photovoltaic inverters

This paper proposes a methodology for product design and comparison of photovoltaic inverters circuitry. This methodology compares costs and power losses of two different circuit solutions, using a reference value for the cost of power of photovoltaic system. Power losses for each circuit solutions are calculated similarly to the weighted efficiencies like European, Californian, and Brazilian, in order to obtain a site-dependent power electronics design. This methodology can be applied to compare different circuit solutions and also different inverter topologies. A design example of the dc bus capacitor of a PV inverter is presented do demonstrate the proposed methodology.