1

Single Phase Solar PV Module Integrated Flyback based Micro-

Inverter with Novel Active Power Decoupling
Nataraj Pragallapati*, Vivek Agarwal

, Senior member, IEEE

Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India and *natarajp@ee.iitb.ac.in,

agarwal@ee.iitb.ac.in



Keywords: Flyback inverter, micro-inverter, MPPT, PV
module, active power decoupling circuit.
Abstract
This paper presents a flyback based single phase solar PV
integrated micro-inverter with a novel active power
decoupling scheme (APDS). The APDS bridges the power
mismatch between the instantaneous grid power and
maximum power of the PV module i.e. reducing the low
frequency power ripple across the PV module. This results in
enhanced maximum power point tracking (MPPT) capability
of the PV module while drastically reducing the input
capacitor size. With the input capacitor size reduced, it may
be replaced by a film capacitor, which increases the system's
reliability. The APDS also helps with the recycling of the
leakage energy of flyback's primary side, thereby reducing the
voltage stress on the main controlling switch. The operating
principle and modes of operation of the proposed topology
are explained. Effectiveness of the proposed micro-inverter
topology is tested with low values of PV side and decoupling
capacitance in reducing the low frequency ripple in the PV
voltage and clamping the voltage spike across the main
switch. Analysis, control and simulation results of the
proposed topology are presented.

1 Introduction
Solar PV module integrated inverters (or micro-inverters)
offer good solution to the problems of device mismatch and
partial shading conditions. In single-phase grid connected
micro-inverter PV system, the output power is composed of
an average power (P
avg
) on which is superimposed an
oscillating component (P
ac
). P
avg
corresponds to the dc input
power from the PV source where as P
grid
must be decoupled
by energy storage components, such as capacitors or
inductors. Otherwise, the maximum power point tracking
(MPPT) efficiency of the PV module will be greatly reduced
due to PV side voltage oscillations (at twice the grid
frequency). Generally, the grid/ac power,P
grid
(double grid
frequency power component) is decoupled by connecting a
large value of electrolytic capacitor across the PV module.
This, however, has some drawbacks [1]. First, a large
capacitor (typically in the range of milli-farads) makes the
system bulky. Second, an electrolytic capacitor has
significantly less lifetime under normal operating conditions.
To overcome these issues, active power decoupling technique
has been contemplated by many researchers. Several active
power decoupling techniques have been proposed in the past
[2] in order to replace the large value of electrolytic capacitor
with a smaller value of thin film capacitor. A flyback type
inverter with APDS is proposed in [3], but the switching loss
and the leakage energy loss of the inverter are high due to the
discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) operation and large
peak current. Although the leakage loss is recycled into the
power decoupling capacitor as presented in [4-6], the
efficiency of the micro-inverter is only increased marginally
due to double energy conversion between storage components
and large current stress on switches. A dual-switch flyback
converter topology has been proposed by Kjaer et al. [7] in
which leakage energy is recycled. However, the circuit
complexity is increased due to the two additional switches.
Cascaded connection of boost and flyback topologies has
been considered in [8] for providing active power decoupling.
But this is a two stage conversion process and less efficient.
This paper proposes a flyback-type single phase micro-
inverter topology with a novel active power decoupling
scheme to improve the MPPT performance of PV module
without using large electrolytic capacitors. The same circuit
also be used as primary leakage energy recycling at the
instant of primary switch (S
1
) is turned off. Organization of
the remaining paper into as follows: Section-2 demonstrates
the proposed micro-inverter configuration and discusses the
analysis and modes of operation in section-3. In Section-4,
explanation of control strategy and designing of key
parameters of micro-inverter. Matlab-Simulink simulation
results of proposed micro-inverter is presented in section-5
and major conclusions of this paper summarized in section-6.
2 Proposed Flyback based micro-inverter
topology
Fig.1 shows the circuit configuration of the proposed flyback
based micro-inverter with APDS. This topology is derived
from a conventional flyback inverter by adding an additional
switch S
2
and incorporating another transformer winding (E
2
)
on the primary side to implement the active power decoupling
function. The power decoupling capacitor, C
cd
is configured
to function both as an energy storage element and a snubber
capacitor to recover the transformers leakage energy. The
function of secondary side diode D
g1
(D
g2
) and switch S
g1

(S
g2
), connected in series, is to facilitate power transfer from
primary side to the grid through appropriate secondary
winding and to maintain the average sinusoidal current
waveform fed in to the grid. The proposed micro-inverter is
2
operated in discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) to ensure
the desired operation.


Fig. 1. Proposed Flyback based micro-inverter topology with active
power decoupling circuit.

Based on the difference between the PV power (P
pv
) and the
instantaneous output power (P
grid
), the operation of the
proposed configuration can be divided into two stages of
operation as illustrated in Fig. 2: stage-I and stage-II. In stage-
I, where the PV power (P
pv
) is greater than the output power
(P
grid
), the differential power is used to charge the decoupling
capacitor, C
cd
through D
1
and the primary winding of the
transformer.

In stage-II, the decoupling capacitor, C
cd
feeds the required
power to the grid. In this way, the power drawn from the PV
module is maintained constant. From Fig. 2 it may be
observed that the current on the primary and secondary sides
is discontinuous i.e. operating in discontinuous conduction
mode (DCM). Thus, the current across the switch increases
from zero when switch S
1
turns ON, thereby rendering zero-
current switching. Further, the reverse recovery losses of
diodes D
2
, D
g1
and D
g2
are eliminated which increases the
overall efficiency of the system. Fig. 2 shows the magnetizing
current i
pri
(t) and secondary current i
sec
(t) waveforms along
with the switching patterns (gating signals) to the switches
during the 4 operating modes of stage-I and stage-II.
3 Operation modes and analysis
As described in Section-2, the modes of operation of the
proposed topology are divided into four sub-modes during
each switching cycle time period for stage-I and stage-II.

Mode-1 (Stage-I&II): During this mode (D
1
T
s
), the switch
(S
1
) is turned on and other switches are in off position as
shown in Fig. 3. The magnetic inductor is energised from the
PV source up to the peak current value as per the reference
command obtained from the Incremental Conductance MPPT
algorithm. The equation for current flowing through
magnetising inductor of primary winding of flyback inverter
is given by:

_ 0
( ) ( )
pv
pri pk
m
V
i t t t
L
=
(1)
the ON time period of S
1
(at t=t
1
) is determined by MPPT
control and the peak current flowing through S
1
as given by:


_
1
.
m pri pk
s
pv
L i
DT
V
=
(2)


Fig. 2 Switching patterns of the proposed micro-inverter topology in
stage-I and stage-II.

The average current of PV source current is constant and can
be expressed as,
2
_
_
2
m pri pk
pv avg
s pv
L i
I
TV
=
(3)
3

Fig. 3 Stage-I and II, Mode-1.
Mode-2 (Stage-I): This mode starts when the switch (S
1
) is
turned off, while the switch (S
2
) and secondary side switches
are in off position as shown in Fig. 4. At this instant, the
magnetising current is charging the decoupling capacitor (C
cd
)
through diode (D
1
). Assuming the voltage across decoupling
capacitor (V
cd
) to be constant during the switching period, the
charging current can be expressed as follows:


_ 1
( ) ( )
cd
cd pri pk
m
V
i t i t t
L
=
(4)
Equation (4) shows that the magnetizing current decreases
linearly during this mode. This mode ends when the value of
i
cd
(t) becomes equal to the required value, i
cd_pk_I,
where the
energy in the magnetizing inductance is exactly equal to the
required value of energy fed into the grid. At this instant,
secondary side switch (S
g1
/S
g2
) should be turned on. The time
duration of this mode is given by,
2_1 _ _ _
( )
m
s pri pk cd pk I
cd
L
D T i i
V
=
(5)

Fig. 4 Stage-I, Mode-2.

Mode-2 (Stage-II): During this mode of operation, the
switches S
1
and S
2
are turned on to transfer the required
energy from decoupling capacitor (C
cd
) to magnetizing
inductor (L
m
) and i
pri
is linearly increased and charged by V
cd
.
During stage-II operation S
g1
or S
g2
remains in on position as
shown in Fig. 5. If the value of V
cd
is constant during the
switching period then the i
cd
can be expressed as follows:
_ 1
( ) ( )
cd
cd pri pk
m
V
i t i t t
L
= +
(6)
When i
cd
reaches the required value, i
cd_pk_II
, switch S
1
should
be turned off. Duration of this period is given by:
2_ 2 _ _ _
( )
m
s pri pk cd pk II
cd
L
D T i i
V
= +
(7)

Fig. 5 Stage-II, Mode-2.
Mode-3 (Stage-I & II): In this mode, secondary side switch,
S
g1
or S
g2
is turned on immediately after the switch, S
1
is
turned off as shown Fig. 6. The energy stored in L
m
is
transferred to grid and i
pri
is discharged by the grid voltage.
The secondary current of the flyback transformer can be
expressed as:
sec _ 2 2
1 1
( ) ( )
grid
cd pk
m
v
i t i t t
n n L
=
(8)
The currents i
pri
and i
sec
are decreased to zero at t=t
3
. The
duration of this mode can be expressed as below:
_
3
. .
cd pk m
s
grid
n i L
DT
v
=
(9)

Fig. 6 Stage-I and II, Mode-3.
4
Mode-4 (Stage-I&II): During this mode, all the switches are
in off position because the circuit is operating in DCM. The
equivalent circuit during this mode of operation for both
stages is as shown in Fig. 7.

Fig. 7 Stage-I and II, Mode-4.
4 Control strategy and selection of key
parameters
4.1 Control strategy and switching pulse generation

The flowchart of the control strategy and switching pulse
generation of the proposed flyback based micro-inverter is
shown in Fig. 8, where the PV voltage (v
pv
), PV current (i
pv
),
voltage across decoupling capacitor (V
cd
), grid voltage (v
grid
)
are measured. Duty ratio of switch (S
1
) is modulated to
regulate the PV voltage at maximum power point by
generating the peak current command from Incremental
Conductance MPPT algorithm [7]. Surplus power (P
pv
-P
grid
) is
stored into the decoupling capacitor when all switches are in
off position and then by suitably operating S
g1
/S
g2
, the
remaining power is fed into the grid in a switching time
period. Deficit power (P
grid
-P
pv
) is fed from the decoupling
capacitor into the grid by controlling the duty cycle of the
switch(S
2
) (stage-II operation) and obtaining the value of D
2
from (5). Secondary side switches are operated in accordance
with the polarity of grid voltage, which is obtained from the
Phase Locked Loop (PLL). Hence, the grid current would be
in phase with the grid voltage and active power feeds into the
grid. In the proposed topology, APDS is also used for the
recovery the leakage energy of primary winding of flyback
transformer at the instant when S
1
is turned off.

4.2 Selection of magnetising inductance and decoupling
capacitor

4.2.1 Magnetising inductance (L
m
)

The selection of an optimal value of the magnetizing
inductance of the proposed micro-inverter is such that the
complete is energy is transferred in less than one switching
time period. In order to operate the micro-inverter in DCM,
the summation of time intervals, during all modes, should be
less than the switching time period. Therefore, the conditions
for operating the proposed micro-inverter in DCM for stage-I
and II are given by;

1 2_1 3 s s s
DT D T D T T + + <
and
1 2 _ 2 3 s s s
DT D T DT T + + < (10)


Fig. 8 Flowchart of the control strategy and the switching pulse
generation for the proposed micro-inverter.


substituting (2), (5) or (7) and (9) in (10) results in the
following condition:

( )
_ _ _ _
pv cd g s
m
pri pk cd g pv g pri pk cd pk cd pk pv cd
V V v T
L
i V v V v i i ni V V
<
+ +
(11)

The value of magnetising inductance must satisfy (11) to
operate the system in DCM.
4.2.2 Decoupling capacitor (C
cd
)

The energy released or absorbed by the decoupling capacitor
during discharging or charging during one half cycle of grid
frequency can be determined by integrating the area of stage-I
and stage-II as below:

/8 /8
0 0
( ) ( ) dt
T T
cd pv grid
P t dt P P =
} }
(12)
The instantaneous ac grid power (P
grid
), which includes the
active power pulsation at twice the grid frequency, can be
defined as:
1
( ) (1 cos 2 )
2
grid grid grid gm gm
P t v i V I t e = =
(13)
Using (12) and (13), the required decoupling capacitor value
is given by:

2 1 2
1
g g S S S S 1 2 1 2 g g S S S S
1 2 1
2
(N) g
g
S S S S
2 2
1 1
(P) g
g
S S S S
2 1
1 2
(N) g
g
S S S S
2
1 2 1
(P) g
g
S S S S
1
1 2 2
(N) g
g
S S S S
1 2 2
1
( ) g
g
S S S S P
1 2 2
1
( ) g
g
S S S S P
1 2 1
2
(N) g
g
S S S S
5

dc_
.
4
pv
dc
dc
dc avg
P
C
v
v V e
=
A | |
A +
|
\ .
(14)
Fig. 9 shows the relationship between required minimum
value of decoupling capacitor and voltage ripple across its
terminals at different average dc voltage levels for a 200W
PV system. From this figure, it can be observed that as the
decoupling capacitor value decreseas, the ripple voltage and
average decoupling capacitor voltage increases. Decoupling
capacitor value required for the proposed micro-inverter with
active power decoupling is 120F.


Fig. 9 Decoupling capacitor value versus allowable ripple voltage at
different DC voltage values.
5 Simulation results and discussions
The proposed flyback based micro-inverter with a new active
power decoupling scheme and leakage energy recovery of
primary winding at the instant of switch (S
1
) turned off have
been verified by MATLAB-Simulink software at a power
level of 200W. The PV module has a rating of P
MPP
=194W,
V
MPP
=34.65V, I
SC
=5.75A, V
OC
=40.15V at an irradiation level
of 1000W/m
2
and temperature of 25
o
C. The circuit
parameters of the proposed flyback based micro-inverter are
listed in Table-1. The proposed micro-inverter is operated at a
switching frequency of 40kHz, with an input voltage range of
25 to 38V and the output voltage of 220V
rms
. Fig. 10 shows
the simulation results of PV voltage with APDS and voltage
across primary switch (S
1
) with and without APDS as shown
in Fig. 11. The primary and secondary winding current in
DCM operation and grid voltage, current for this topology
with low value of PV side capacitor (C
pv
= 100f) are shown
in Figs. 11 and 12 respectively.

Table-1 Circuit parameters of the proposed Micro-inverter.
Parameter Value Parameter Value
P
max
195W L
f
2mH
V
pv
25-38V C
f
1f
L
m
9.6H V
grid
220V
C
pv
100F C
cd
120F
N
p
:N
s
:N
E
1:6:1 F 50Hz
f
s
40kHz

Fig. 10 PV voltage (V
pv
).


Fig. 11 Voltage across switch (S
1
) with APDS and without APDS.

Fig. 11 Current through primary and secondary winding.
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
105V
110V
120V
130V
6

Fig. 12 Grid volage (v
g
) (scale:103.7) and current (i
g
).



6 Conclusions
A single phase flyback based micro-inverter with new active
power decoupling has been presented in this paper. The
proposed configuration is simulated at a power level of 200W
using Matlab-Simulink software. The active power
decoupling scheme is able to provide the double grid
frequency power component to the grid while reducing the
required decoupling capacitor value. Thus, the PV side
voltage has very low ripple, which improves the MPPT
efficiency. The same circuit is used to recover the leakage
energy of primary winding at the instant when the main
switch is turned on. Hence the need for an extra passive or
active snubber circuit for clamping the voltage across the
main switch is obviated. Simulation results of the proposed
micro-inverter have been included for realizing APDS and
leakage energy recycling, along with this operating modes
and control strategy are also included.
Acknowledgements
This work has been supported by a joint India-UK initiative in
solar energy through a joint project Stability and
Performance of Photovoltaics (STAPP) funded by
Department of Science and Technology (DST) in India and
Research Councils UK (RCUK) Energy Programme in UK
(contract no: EP/H040331/1).
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