Monopolar DC to bipolar DC to AC converter
AssigneeXantrex Technology Inc.
InventorRick West
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An electrical DC-to-AC power conversion apparatus is disclosed that is primarily intended for use with solar photovoltaic sources in electric utility grid-interactive applications. The invention improves the conversion efficiency and lowers the cost of DC-to-AC inverters. The enabling technology is a novel inverter circuit topology, where throughput power, from DC source to AC utility, is processed a maximum of 1½ times instead of 2 times as in prior-art inverters. The AC inverter output configuration can be either single-phase, split-phase or poly-phase.
Claims6
An electrical power converter apparatus for converting power from a DC source into AC power and comprising;
- a bipolar energy storage element having bipolar voltages with respect to a common point, a DC-to-DC power converter with inverted input and output voltages with respect to said common point and a DC-to-AC converter, and furthermore, where said DC source is connected across one monopole of said bipolar energy storage element and across the input of said DC-to-DC power converter and where the output of said DC-to-DC power converter is connected to the remaining monopole of said bipolar energy storage element and where said DC-to-AC converter converts the voltages across said bipolar energy storage element into current-regulated sine waves, synchronized with an electrical utility voltage or voltages, and sources power into an electrical utility grid.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.