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US 10,833,599 B2Granted
Highly interleaved converter for reliable power processing
AssigneeMaxOut Renewables, Inc.
InventorEric Bryant Cummings
Life of this patent
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Abstract
This specification discloses a novel power converter comprising a large array of interleaved converter channels. As a system, these channels provide high reliability through redundancy. The embodiments described herein solve a reliability and cost issues in converting electrical energy to alternating current (AC) power, with particular application to string inverters for solar power applications.
Claims12
An electric power converter comprising:
- a master controller and array of converter channels;
- an interleaver circuit that time sequences a substantially evenly time-staggered clock waveform to each converter channel of the array of converter channels, each converter channel establishing a switching synchronized to the clock waveform;
- an analog switch-control signal driven by master controller circuitry that is common to a plurality of converter channels of the array of converter channels;
- and
- a feedback loop on each converter channel that compares a measured current against the analog switch-control signal to generate an offset Voltage waveform, that further comprises a circuit to sum said offset Voltage waveform on a substantially saw-tooth Voltage waveform, that further applies said sum to a thresholding circuit.
2 more elements
An electric power converter comprising:
- a master controller and array of converter channels;
- an interleaver circuit that time sequences a substantially evenly time-staggered clock waveform to at least a subset of the array of converter channels, each converter channel of the subset establishing a switching synchronized to the clock waveform;
- an analog switch-control signal common to at least the subset of the array of converter channels, the analog switch-control signal being an output of an outer feedback analog circuit that is based on a difference between a microcontroller-generated target signal and a sensed actual signal;
- and
- a feedback loop on each converter channel that compares a measured current against the analog switch-control signal to generate a control waveform, that further comprises a circuit to sum said control waveform on a substantially saw-tooth waveform, that further applies said sum to a thresholding circuit.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.