A Synchronized Boost Converter for Low Power Photo Voltaic Harvesting with Practical Design Considerations

The objective of this research is to address low power photovoltaic (PV) harvesting issues and to develop a new power loss reduction methodology to improve the efficiency and output voltage concurrently. The output impedance of a PV is non-constant, and it changes in a nonlinear fashion which makes it a challenge to match the load to the PV cell impedance for efficiency regulation. Equally important is to avoid decreasing the output voltage of the module during an overcast. This creates a challenge to ensure a maximum power transfer and hence, degrades the efficiency. This paper presents a systematic approach to develop more efficient solar power conversion topologies to improve the output power, efficiency, output voltage and voltage conversion efficiency concurrently with a negligible impact on the reliability in Continuous Current Mode (CCM). To verify and validate the analysis and theory of the proposed topology, four prototypes were tested experimentally. The proposed circuit and approach outperform the current low power harvesting in terms of efficiency (83.1%) and output voltage.