Design of a Nine-Switch Three-Phase Multilevel Inverter with a PV Array Source

Multilevel inverters are used in many applications in the industry, due to its power quality advantages. In this paper, a multilevel inverter is designed along with a photovoltaic array as the source to power a three-phase AC load. To regulate the voltage of the photovoltaic (PV) panel array, a dc-dc boost converter is added to the system. The output voltage of the converter is the input voltage of the three-phase multilevel inverter that will power the 3-phase load. The multilevel inverter is based on a five-level signal and the used topology uses 9 switching devices. This is the same number of levels as existing topologies with a reduced number of components. The multilevel inverter is based on a five-level signal and the proposed topology uses less switching devices than existing topologies. Finally, this paper presents the design procedures and simulation results using MATLAB's Simulink of the proposed system.