Develop High-Performance Solar-Power Systems With Micro-Inverter Dev Kit

Rather than link all solar panels in an installation together to a central inverter, solar micro-inverter systems place smaller (“micro”) inverters at the output of each individual solar panel, thus eliminating partial shading conditions and boosting system efficiency, reliability, and modularity. Texas Instruments, recognizing this emerging segment of the solar-power industry, created the C2000 Solar Micro Inverter development kit. It contains a complete grid-tied solar micro inverter based around the company’s C2000 Piccolo TMS320F28035 microcontroller (MCU). The MCU, which operates the inverter at 100-kHz PWM frequency to reduce harmonic distortion, executes high-frequency control loops for dc-dc and dc-ac power stages. The kit implements control of an active clamp flyback dc-dc converter with secondary voltage multiplier, MPPT, and a grid-tied dc-ac inverter (thus comprising the power-conversion stages of the inverter). It supports 28- to 45-V panel voltages at input as well as universal power output at up to 280 W for 220 V ac and up to 140 for 110 V ac. Peak efficiency of 93% and less than 4% total harmonic distortion provide more power output per solar panel. UCC27531 and UCC27211 gate drivers also boost efficiency with 17-ns propagation delay, as well as provide negative voltage handling and high supply voltage (UCC27531) for switching IGBTs.

TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC.