Novel Level Shifted PWM Technique for Unequal and Equal Power Sharing in Quasi Z-Source Cascaded Multilevel Inverter for PV Systems

Conventional phase-shifted pulsewidth modulation (PS-PWM) is a usual switching technique for Z-source/quasi-Z-Source (qZS)-based cascaded multilevel inverters (CMIs) (qZS-CMIs). The PS-PWM scheme causes higher switching losses and creates an electromagnetic interference (EMI) problem for higher number of cascaded modules. To address these issues, a novel, modified level-shifted PWM (LS-PWM) technique is proposed with the aim of obtaining equal power from cascaded modules under abnormal conditions. The direct use of the alternate phase-opposed disposed PWM (APOD-PWM) results in unequal power sharing between the qZSI modules, under all operating conditions. An effective carrier rotation is incorporated in the conventional APOD-PWM to make equal power sharing between the qZSI modules. The proposed scheme is an excellent solution for photovoltaic (PV) systems to address the problem of partial or complete shading, temperature variation, PV module failure, and dust accumulation on the PV panels. Furthermore, the relationship between PS-PWM and APOD-PWM is geometrically obtained, which indicates that the proposed modulation scheme gives higher voltage gain over LS-PWM and PS-PWM techniques. In addition, detailed switching loss analysis for the proposed PWM methods is added to validate low-switching losses, and thus high efficiency. The MATLAB Simulink simulations are presented to verify the proposed modulation. An experimental prototype is developed, and the experimental outcomes validate the improved performance of the multilevel qZSI with proposed modulation.