A Novel Multilevel Inverter and Its Study in PV System for Power Fluctuation Compensation Using DC Superconducting Cable

A novel seven-level switched-capacitor inverter (7L-SCI) topology has been proposed in this article, which is being applied to a grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) system with DC superconducting cable. The proposed topology has the additional benefit of inherent fault tolerance to the switch faults. A comparative analysis is provided between the proposed topology and different seven-level MLI topologies. Additionally, DC superconducting cable is utilized for its energy storage properties to smooth out fluctuations in PV power. A superconducting cable can conduct high-speed charges and discharges, allowing the cable to deal with output PV power fluctuations that are difficult to control using conventional technologies. The application of the superconducting cable reduces the spikes in inverter’s source current which is generally a drawback of using a switched capacitor multilevel inverter. Through the use of a laboratory prototype, the performance of the presented topology is examined. Finally, simulation results of MATLAB/Simulink<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">®</sup> are presented to show the grid-connected system’s performance with and without superconducting cables.