Energy-Buffered Single-Phase Inverter Operating in the Fundamental Limit of Indirect Power

This paper describes a simple methodology to generate “continuous power models” (CPM), based on VA area interpretation of the power flowing through the ports of multiport converters. These models enable the calculation of the minimum indirect power to be processed by power converters based on their electrical specifications. It is especially useful to compare power architectures with multiple building blocks or multiple ports, such as stacked sources (PV cells) or loads (digital cores) and energy buffered converters such as single-phase inverters, power factor correction circuits and three phase rectifiers and inverters. The synthesis of circuits that minimize the figure of merit Pind/Pdiff is also illustrated in the paper.