This project introduces a new converter called reconfigurable solar converter (RSC) for photovoltaic (PV)-battery application, particularly utility-scale PV-battery application. The main concept of the new converter is to use a single-stage three phase grid-tie solar PV converter to perform dc/ac and dc/dc operations. This converter solution is appealing for PV-battery application, because it minimizes the number of conversion stages, thereby improving efficiency and reducing cost, weight, and volume. In this paper, a combination of analysis and experimental tests is used to demonstrate the attractive performance characteristics of the proposed RSC. The proposed micro-inverter has a quadratic boost converter in the DC-DC stage and multistage universal-bridge inverter in the DC-AC stage. The boost operates in continuous conduction mode (CCM) along its overall operational range, while the full bridge inverter uses bipolar commutation. The quadratic boost is controlled to regulate a DC voltage bus with a level higher than the peak voltage of the utility in order to guarantee the adequate direction on the power flow. Meanwhile, the full-bridge inverter shapes the output current using the grid voltage waveform as reference and defining the amplitude with a control signal given by the MPPT.
