MATLAB-Simulink environment based power quality improvement in photovoltaic system using multilevel inverter

Introduction. In this world of technical advancement, conventional resources are at the stage of destruction. To avoid such problems, we are going to use an alternative energy source namely solar by photovoltaic effect. The demand for multilevel inverters increased as they are used for different dynamic (high) voltage and dynamic (high) power appliances as they are capable of producing the output wave shape with low total harmonic distortion. Novelty. A new multilevel inverter is used in adding a (bidirectional) two way switch in between the capacitor and a traditional H-bridge module. This produces a better sine wave. By series connection of these two H-bridge modules, nine levels output voltage including zero is possible. The purpose of the proposed topology is reduction in the number of switches and it gives the good result with comparatively less power loss when it is compared with the other normal basic traditional inverters of the same output quality. Methods. In this paper, sinusoidal pulse width modulation technique is used for the working of the switches in the multilevel inverter. The results are verified by using simulation and also experimental setup is done. From the results it is observed that the proposed topology with reduced number of switches gives lower electromagnetic interference, lower harmonic distortion. Practical value. The total harmonic distortion value in the simulation is 14.4 % and practically it is 13.8 %.