Fault-Tolerant Approach for Photovoltaic Module-Level Power Electronic Applications

This paper presents research findings regarding the post-fault operation possibility of photovoltaic module-level power electronic systems. As the main contribution, it proposes an approach for the realization of photovoltaic microconverters with tolerance to power switch failures. The hybrid switching cell is proposed as a power electronic building block, which enables post-fault operation in the case of the open- or short-circuit failure of any of its power switches. Paper discusses the operation principle and provides experimental results of the 250 W fault-tolerant photovoltaic microconverter.