Design of an intra-module DC-DC converter for PV application: Design considerations and prototype

The effective efficiency of a photovoltaic system is strongly affected by varying factors such as partial shading. The centralized power conversion has limitations to mitigate that problem. As a possible solution the benefits of the distributed power conversion are explored and as an integral part of distributed power conversion an intra-module DC-DC converter is presented here to implement at substring level in photovoltaic application. In this work, the design requirements of the intra-module converter are identified and the converter is designed accordingly. The effectiveness of the designed converter is also discussed in this paper. Finally, a fully-working prototype of this converter is built and tested.