Power Loss Reduction in Buck Converter Based Active Power Decoupling Circuit

Active power decoupling (APD) circuits enable the use of long lifetime capacitors (film or ceramic capacitors) in single-phase power converters. Owing to the inclusion of the APD circuits, the literature reports 1.5%-1.8% drop in efficiency of single-phase converter at rated power. This reduction in conversion efficiency is one of the significant challenges in the practical use of APD circuits. This article proposes an approach to reduce the power loss in the bidirectional buck converter based APD circuit. This approach is presented with the help of analytical calculations and graphical representation of operation of APD circuit. The proposed approach requires rapid variation in the average voltage of the buffer capacitor with a change in inverter power. To achieve this, an enhanced control technique is suggested with a duty ratio injection controller. The steady state and transient response of the proposed control technique are validated with simulation and experimentation. Further, the reduction in power losses realized by the proposed approach is verified with the help of a developed laboratory prototype. The proposed approach obtains up to 1% improvement in efficiency of single-phase converter at rated power, when compared with existing APD approaches.