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Abstract

Renewable energy sources such as fuel cells, photovoltaic (PV) arrays are increasingly being used in automobiles, residential and commercial buildings. For stand-alone systems energy storage devices are required for backup power and fast dynamic response. A power electronic converter interfaces the sources with the load along with energy storage. Existing converters for such applications use a common dc link. High frequency ac-link based systems have recently been explored due to its advantages of reduced part count, reduced size and centralized control. Such a high frequency ac link based converter is termed as a multi-port converter in which ports are connected with the energy sources, energy storage devices and the load. It is desirable to have bi-directional, isolated power flow between energy storage devices and the sources. This paper deals about the multi-port bidirectional converters with different topologies either with voltage fed or current fed structure. Bidirectional power flow between the load port and the energy storage devices are achieved in order to maintain the power balance in the system. The power flow between ports can be controlled by suitable control strategy and phase-shifting the square wave outputs of the bridges in combination with pulse width modulation (PWM) control scheme. Moreover the converter also has high efficiency due to soft-switching operation in all the ports. This paper deals about an elaborate review on bidirectional multi-port dc-dc converters for interfacing the renewable sources.