Investigation of efficiency of dual input DC/DC converter

Abstract

Nowadays solar-wind hybrid renewable energy systems are becoming popular. Solar-wind hybrid renewable energy sources provide increased system efficiency as well as greater balance in energy supply. This also creates more output from the wind turbine during the winter, whereas during the summer, the solar panels produce their peak output. A dc-dc converter is required to adjust the low quality output voltage of solar panels. An ac-dcac converter is necessary for wind systems. Based on various applications, various power converters are used for delivering desired electrical energy to the load with maximum efficiency and minimum cost. Many converter topologies with single source input like wind or solar or fuel systems etc.., are available in the literature. The real challenge lies in using similar/dissimilar combinations of these sources for power generation, in selecting a proper topology that produces high efficiency and a suitable converter topology. So, a novel fused cuk-Buck converter topology is proposed for solar-wind hybrid renewable energy sources. In order to find the efficiency of the proposed converter topology, simulations are carried out using MATLAB/SIMULINK and the results are presented. An elaborate element wise comparison between similar/ dissimilar solar/wind combinations of fused cuk-buck converter topology is reported.