Characteristics like reliability and modularity of solar photovoltaic (SPV) units makes them one of the apt options for generating electric power. However, the input intermittency is their major lacuna, and power electronic circuits are being used to nullify this effect. A solar photovoltaic power conversion process includes a DC-DC converter in the plant side to deliver a fixed DC voltage and a DC-AC converter in the grid side for converting DC voltage in to grid compatible AC voltage. The high duty ratio of typical DC-DC boost converters limits the switching frequency and efficiency. In this article, a way to enhance the performance of a SPV unit using an improved quadratic boost converter (IQBC) is analysed. It can deliver a higher output voltage at lower duty ratio with Perturb and Observe (P&O) algorithm-based Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT). A 250 W prototype of IQBC-based Solar PV power conversion system (SPVPCS) is developed, and its performance is compared against conventional and quadratic boost converters and found that the IQBC-based solar power conversion system is efficient and the results are presented. K E Y W O R D S boost converter, duty ratio, improved quadratic boost converter, solar PV conversion, system, voltage gain 1 | INTRODUCTION Renewable energy resources are getting much importance nowadays due to wider exploitation of fossil fuels. 1 Even though there are several renewable energy sources available, wind and solar energy are gaining an edge over the other resources due to their reliability and ability to deliver higher power levels. But it does have a limitation; that is, the input for solar PV system is highly intermittent. This effect of input intermittency can be nullified using power converters. 2,3 DC-DC converters are used to nullify these fluctuations through step up/step down of DC voltage from solar PV panel. Even though higher voltage can be obtained by connecting panels in series, losses due to partial shading and cost will be the drawbacks. 4-6 To achieve voltage boost, a boost converter have to be operated at high duty ratio. While operating the converter in higher duty ratio, issues like high switching voltage stress, limited switching frequency, reverse recovery problem and electromagnetic interference may occur, and also, it affects the efficiency of the converter. 7 As a remedy to the above setbacks, many DC-DC boost converter topologies are proposed recently. 8 Cascaded boost converter gives an opportunity of obtaining high output voltage with less duty ratio. 9,10 Even though it offers individual panel level MPPT, its cascaded structure raises the cost of overall system. 11 SEPIC converter embedded with the MPPT