Modeling Efficiency of Inverters with Multiple Inputs

Clifford W Hansen, Jay Johnson, Rachid Darbali, Nicholas Gurule Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, United States

Inverters convert DC power to AC power that can be injected into the grid. Many PV inverters now offer multiple, independent maximum power point trackers (MPPTs) to accommodate PV arrays with different configurations. There is currently no validated model for overall DC-to-AC power conversion efficiency for such inverters. Herein, we propose a mathematical model that describes the behavior of a multi-MPPT inverter and present validation using a commercial PV inverter with six MPPT inputs.