Hardware PCB fabrication of PV grid-connected inverter

• Main Author: Lim, Weixiang
• Other Authors: Ali Iftekhar Maswood
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/71977
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Power electronics device that converts Direct Current (DC) power to Alternating Current (AC) power at any required voltage and frequency level is also known as an inverter. The inverter does not provide any power and the only power source is the DC input. The output voltage and frequency purely depends on the circuitry and design of the circuit. Inverters mainly can be categorized in a few ways, some are classified in terms of multilevel inverter or two level inverters. Some are classified in terms of current source inverters (CSI) or voltage source inverters (VSI). For this project we will be discussing on the hardware fabrication of a three level current source inverter. Some advantages of a multilevel inverters are that they have minimum EMI/RFI generation, reduced harmonic reduction and it can operate on several different voltage levels. Inverters are used in many applications and DC/AC inverters are also now widely used for the generation of green energy. Examples are electric vehicles as they relies heavily on inverters. The main objective of this project is to design a three level DC/AC inverter and also to fabricate the hardware which will increase efficiency and performance of the final circuitry. This project will also be discussing on the steps taken to design and fabricate a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) from scratch. Software named Eagle is being used for the designing and creating of the PCB. The software that is evaluated in the project and steps for creating the components and circuit, drawing of schematic, placement of components, routing for PCB and the final PCB design will be shown in this report. Simulations results will also be shown in this report. Discussion about the simulation will be presented and lastly the report will be concluded and future work will be discussed.