A comprehensive review of grid-connected inverter topologies and control strategies (2020–2025)

This comprehensive review examines grid-connected inverter technologies from 2020 to 2025, revealing critical insights that fundamentally challenge industry assumptions about technological advancements and deployment strategies. Quantitative analysis demonstrates that conventional topologies have approached efficiency limits, with 2-level voltage source inverters achieving 96.5%, while advanced multilevel systems reach 98.9%. However, exponential cost increases for marginal gains indicate diminishing returns, which will reshape investment priorities across the $85 billion market evolution. The investigation reveals a previously unquantified performance-reliability trade-off, where 13-level T-type inverters achieve a total harmonic distortion of 0.6% but sacrifice operational lifetime, reducing it from 45,000 h to 18,000 h due to component scaling laws, fundamentally questioning whether advanced topologies provide superior value propositions. Transformerless H5 and highly efficient and reliable inverter concept (HERIC) designs successfully suppress leakage currents by 95%, while maintaining an efficiency of 98% or higher, representing critical breakthroughs that enable widespread photovoltaic integration. Artificial intelligence-based control demonstrates 15–20% dynamic response improvements, despite computational constraints limiting inference to 1.25 μs, which reveal fundamental barriers to intelligent grid implementation. Supply chain analysis reveals critical deployment vulnerabilities, with component lead times exceeding 26 weeks and 18.9% quarterly price volatility, indicating that technological superiority alone cannot guarantee market success without supply chain resilience. The study identifies 5 priority research areas—wide-bandgap semiconductors, intelligent control, grid-forming capabilities, cybersecurity infrastructure, and advanced materials—providing strategic direction for future development. This approach prioritises grid stability by successfully balancing technical performance against economic viability and supply chain constraints, rather than pursuing efficiency optimisation alone.