A flying capacitor multilevel inverter with bootstrap-powered MOSFET gate drive circuits

Author

Molepo, S.A. ; Mouton, Hendrik du Toit

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Electron. Eng., Stellenbosch Univ., South Africa

Volume

2

fYear

2002

fDate

2002

Firstpage

701

Abstract

The problem of nontechnical power loss due to theft of electricity experienced in developing countries is of great concern. This is done mainly by tapping of the overhead AC reticulation networks and bypassing of metering units. Applying DC reticulation at higher voltage levels using the existing AC reticulation networks is one approach to solving this problem. This paper aims at investigating the development of a cost-effective 3.5 kVA flying capacitor multilevel inverter (FCMLI) for DC reticulation. The development of a low-cost bootstrap power supply for multilevel inverter gate drive circuits is also discussed.

Keywords

DC-AC power convertors; driver circuits; field effect transistor switches; invertors; power MOSFET; power capacitors; power semiconductor switches; power supplies to apparatus; switching circuits; 3.5 kVA; DC reticulation; bootstrap-powered MOSFET gate drive circuits; flying capacitor multilevel inverter; low-cost bootstrap power supply; nontechnical power loss; Capacitors; Insulated gate bipolar transistors; Inverters; MOSFET circuits; Power supplies; Semiconductor device noise; Switches; Switching frequency; Topology; Voltage control;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Power Electronics Specialists Conference, 2002. pesc 02. 2002 IEEE 33rd Annual

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7262-X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PSEC.2002.1022536

Filename

1022536