The boosting factor has become a vital feature for a multilevel inverter to be connected with the low voltage PV system. In this paper, an inverter topology with 9 levels has been introduced. With the use of 10 switches and one switched capacitor unit, the proposed 9L-SC-BMLI has achieved nine different voltage states, and it has twice voltage gain. Without any auxiliary circuits, the voltage of the floating capacitor can maintain self-balanced. The additional feature of the proposed 9L-SC-BMLI has been the lower number of switches, voltage stress of reduced magnitude, and inherent polarity reversal of the output voltage without any H-bridge. The 9L-SC-BMLI has been controlled using the PD-PWM technique, i.e., phasedisposition pulse width modulation technique. In order to show the merits of the 9L-SC-BMLI, a detailed comparative study has been provided in the paper with several similar topologies. A number of simulation results have been provided in the paper with different working environments, and these results have been validated with the real-time results accomplished from a laboratory prototype.

The multiple power peaks obtained in the power–voltage ( P‐V ) curve of a photovoltaic string under partially shaded condition results in a complicated maximum power point tracking (MPPT) process. Under this condition, the conventional MPPT methods are not acknowledged as they result in false and slow tracking. In this study three novel global MPPT (GMPPT) methods have been proposed and validated. These are named as large and small duty step (LSDS), large and mutable duty step (LMDS) and fast and intelligent GMPPT (FI‐GMPPT). The LSDS method sweeps almost the entire P‐V curve using a combination of LSDS. Small duty steps are used in predefined areas near all local maximum power points of the P‐V curve. LMDS is a further improved method, which uses a combination of LMDSs. The FI‐GMPPT is an advance true GMPPT method which limits the area to be swept during the search process. This results in a further reduction in sweep time. In this method, the unnecessary area is skipped during the sweep process. The improved performance of the projected methods has been demonstrated and validated using MATLAB/SIMULINK and hardware implementation.

In this paper, a novel maximum power point (MPP) tracking technique for photovoltaic system (PV) with fast convergence speed and reduced range for the MPP search operation is presented. The characteristic of this method is the limited searching area/range for the tracking. The adaptable variable duty step used in the proposed method instantaneously brings the operating point close to the MPP, thus bounding the searching area. The value of duty gets updated according to the panel temperature and irradiance, and the operating point always remains close to the MPP. By bounding the search operation, the overall tracking speed and efficiency of the tracking increase. Further enhancement of the tracking speed is obtained by varying the step size of duty ratio of the DC-DC converter used; this is done in such a manner that the size of variable duty step is large for the points far away from MPP and becomes very small at or near MPP. The projected tracking algorithm is compared with conventional Perturb and Observe MPPT method in diverse irradiance and temperature conditions, and evaluation of the proposed tracking method is reported. Finally, field performance of the proposed method has been done by using a 250 W PV system. Arduino Uno microcontroller board is used for controlling the duty of the DC-DC converter. Results obtained from the hardware implementation have been presented and is concluded that the method has fast tracking capability and better efficiency. To sum up, overall performance of the proposed Fast Mutable Duty MPP Tracking technique is appreciable.

Recently, the superiority of multi-phase systems in comparison to three-phase energy systems has been demonstrated with regards to power generation, transmission, distribution, and utilization in particular. Generally, two techniques, specifically semiconductor converter and special transformers (static and passive transformation) have been commonly employed for power generation by utilizing multi-phase systems from the available three-phase power system. The generation of multi-phase power at a fixed frequency by utilizing the static transformation method presents certain advantages compared to semiconductor converters such as reliability, cost-effectiveness, efficiency, and lower total harmonics distortion (THD). Multi-phase transformers are essential to evaluate the parameters of a multi-phase motor, as they require a multi-phase signal that is pure sine wave in nature. However, multi-phase transformers are not suitable for variable frequency applications. Moreover, they have shortcomings with regard to impedance mismatching, the unequal number of turns which lead to inaccurate results in per phase equivalent circuits, which results in an imbalance output in phase voltages and currents. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate multi-phase power transformation from a three-phase system and examine the different static multi-phase transformation techniques. In line with this matter, this study outlines various theories and configurations of transformers, including three-phase to five-, seven-, eleven-, and thirteen-phase transformers. Moreover, the review discusses impedance mismatching, voltage unbalance, and per phase equivalent circuit modeling and fault analysis in multi-phase systems. Moreover, various artificial intelligence-based optimization techniques such as particle swarm optimization (PSO) and the genetic algorithm (GA) are explored to address various existing issues. Finally, the review delivers effective future suggestions that would serve as valuable opportunities, guidelines, and directions for power engineers, industries, and decision-makers to further research on multi-phase transformer improvements towards sustainable operation and management.