A modified Z‐source switched‐capacitor based non‐isolated high gain DC‐DC converter for photovoltaic applications

This work proposes a modified high gain DC‐DC converter integrated with two boost converter stages, based on a boost cell and a Z‐source (ZS) cell with a switched capacitor (SC). The proposed converter architecture is simple, with a continuous input current and a wide range of input voltage fluctuation handling capabilities. It also provides a high voltage gain while minimizing voltage stress on semiconductor components. Because of the aforementioned characteristics, the proposed converter is suitable for combining with low‐voltage DC‐sources to high‐voltage DC bus in a variety of applications such as solar photovoltaic (SPV), fuel‐cell, and LED lighting. The operational principles, thermal modeling, steady‐state, and dynamic performance analysis are meticulously carried out on a 400 W laboratory prototype of the proposed converter. The converter's performance is carefully compared with similar existing topologies in terms of total device count and size, the voltage stress on power semiconductors, voltage gain, and peak efficiency. Furthermore, experimental findings show that a 12 V input is boosted to 98.8 V at a duty ratio of 0.3, demonstrating the efficacy of the proposed converter over a comparable structure. This work proposes a modified high gain DC‐DC converter with two boost converter stages, based on boost cell and Z‐source cell with switched capacitor. The converter architecture is simple and provides high voltage gain with reduced voltage stress on components. It is suitable for combining low‐voltage DC sources to high‐voltage DC bus in variety of applications. The converter's performance is compared with similar topologies in terms of device count, size, voltage stress on semiconductors, voltage gain, and peak efficiency.