2010 International Conference on Electrical and Control Engineering
Multiport DC/DC Converter for stand-alone
photovoltaic lighting system with battery storage
Shengyong Liu 1,2 Xing Zhang 1
1.School of Electric Engineering and Automation
Hefei University of Technology
Hefei ,Anhui Prov. China
Email:liusypp@163.com
Abstract — Photovoltaic energy has nowadays an increased
importance in electrical power applications. However, the output
power provided via the photovoltaic conversion process depends
on solar irradiation and temperature. Therefore a multiple-input
DC/DC converter is proposed for stand-alone photovoltaic
lighting system with battery storage in this paper. Compared
with the traditional stand-alone photovoltaic system, which
merely use one muti-input biderictional DC/DC converter
control the battery charge or discharge effectively, protect
battery and prolong its natural life as well as have high
conversion efficiency and low cost for photovoltaic lighting
system.. Muti-input converter implements bi-directional energy
transfer in the system, so the key of energy management is
control bi-directional converter effectively.Finally the simulation
and experimental verifications are also presented.
Key words: Multiport DC/DC Converter; photovoltaic(PV);
battery; charge/discharge
I. INTRDUCTION
As conventional energy sources are dwindling fast with a
consequent rise in cost, considerable attention is being paid to
other alternative sources. Solar energy which is free and
abundant inmost parts of the world has proven to be an
economical source of energy in many applications[1-2]. At
present, the main way to utilize the solar energy is
photovoltaic power generation. The photovoltaic process is a
technology in which radiant energy from the sun is converted
to direct current (DC) electricity. Photovoltaic system .the
high frequency electrodeless lamp is one new green light
source, which has the service life of more than 60,000 hours,
and luminous efficiency of 60Lm/W. This lamp, combined
with photovoltaic generation, and characterized by high
efficiency and long life[3].
Foundation Project：Supported by Scientific Research Foudation of Education
Department of Guangxi. (200911LX164). Guangxi Science Foundation:
（ 0991067）.
978-0-7695-4031-3/10 $26.00 © 2010 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/iCECE.2010.950
Haibin Guo 1 Jun Xie 1
2.Engineering Training Center
Guangxi University of Technology
LiuZhou, GuangXi Prov.China
Lsy@gxut.edu.cn
However, the output power provided via the photovoltaic
conversion process depends on solar irradiation and
temperature.as well as photovoltaic lighting system
commonly used by off-grid photovoltaic system[4-5].
Therefore,a battery store system is very indispensable. The
photovoltaic array converts the solar energy into the electric
energy, which is then stored in the battery by means of
bidirectional DC/DC converter. This paper presents a
multiport bi-directional DC/DC converter for electrodeless
lamp lighting system as illustrated[6] in Figure 1. In this
system, the solar cell charges the battery, and supply the
power to the ballast, these two processes could be achieved by
using only one multiport converter. Compared with the
conventional system structure who is simple in structure, and
it could fully utilize the solar energy by system energy
management and optimization control.
Fig 1. photovoltaic lighting System configuration using Multiport dc/dc
converter
The energy management, Multi-bi-directional DC/DC
converter are analyzed in detail and designed next, achieving
the integration of solar energy controller .
II. OPERATION DESCRIPTION AND CONVERTER
DESIGN
The main circuit structure of the photovoltaic lighting
system for lamp is shown in Figure 2. The system is
composed of one double-input DC/DC converter[6,8-10], which
also contains one Buck-Boost circuit, and one high frequency
Buck mode.
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Fig2 Circuit topology of the proposed stand-alone photovoltaic lighting
system.
The solar cell charges the battery through Buck-Boost bridge
converter, and the battery voltage is boosted to 400V by
means of phase shift control multiport DC/DC converter in
order to supply power to electrodeless lamp ballast..
A .Charge state
During the daytime, the energy for the PV lighting
system is generated from sunlight by PV panel,The system
operate at charge mode,enegy is stored in lead-acid storage
batteries by Buck-Boost converter which work at synchronous
shown in fig.3a,. the charging process,as shown in fig. 3b. The
charging circuit has three modes according to different states
of the batteries: a high-current charging mode; an over-charge
mode; and a float mode[7]. A charge cycle begins with the
charger in the high-current charge state,during this mode the
charging circuit only tracks the maximum power point and
provides the batteries possible maximum current and monitors
the batteries voltage. When it reaches a transition threshold
Vth,the circuit begins its over-charge cycle. During the
overcharge,the charger regulates the batteries at an elevated
voltage VCO, until the charge rate drops to a specified
transition current, Ico. When the current drops to Ico, the
capacity of the batteries should be at nearly 100%. At this
point the charging circuit turns into a voltage regulator with a
precisely defined output voltage Vf. The output voltage of the
circuit in this third state sets the float level for the battery..
B.Discharge state
When the electrodeless discharge lamp is illumined, The
system operate at discharge mode,the power to the lamp is
provided from the battery to boost high voltage side
bus,which supply about 400Vdc to ballast.Fig4 shows the
equibalent circuit during discharge state and operational

(a) equivalent circuit during discharge state

V AB 2π
(a)equivalent charge circuit
ωt
φ
Vbat VCD
VCO
ωt
Vf
I Ls 2
I bat ωt
Vmin

I co
(b) Operational waveforms
t
t0 t1 t2 Fig4 equivalent circuit during discharge state and Operational
waveforms
(b)Battery charging control schemes
waveforms. It has voltage-fed inverter at high voltage side
Fig3 equivalent circuit during charge state and battery charging control
and current-fed inverter at low voltage side,the leakage
schemes inductance of the transformer is utilized as energy transferring
The charging system equivalent charge circuit as inverter element[11],the power is controlled by the phase-shifting angle
φ.The battery voltage is Vbat ,the switching frequency is ω,the

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output power equation can be found to be : bus voltage, which supply for ballast ,the Vdcref will be the
2
Vbat φ (π − φ ) desired HVS dc bus voltage、current reference is generated
P0 = from PI2 [9] .
ωπL f
（1）
IV. SIMULATION AND EXPREMENT RESULTS
V 2φ (π − φ ) Converter parameters were used in simulation and
Ldc 2 = in
L dc 2 can be calculated as: ωπP0 experiment as follows: switch frequency of 100kHz is
（2） chosen for bidirectional dc/dc converter frequency[10],
The advantages of this circuit are low voltage side boost Ldc1,2=25u; Lrs1.2=.05uH; Vin=48V; Vdc=400V; P0=150W ;
converter draws much smoother current from the load voltage Ballast frequency is 2.65MHz; L2=20u; Cp=
0.5uF;Cs=0.8uF .
source than half bridge and push pull voltage inverter, battery
natural life is prolonged ;ZVS are achieved for all switchs A Simulation resulte
without additional switching devices, it benefit to system Simulation result are given in Fig.6a shows the main
efficiency. waveforms in buck charging mode,Fig.6b shows the
III. CONTROL SRATEGY waveforms of boost mode during ballast operation.

Fig. 5 shows the proposed management control system

for stand-alone photovoltaic lighting system of electrodeless
lamp, system control is implemented with TMS320LF2812.
During charging mode, power is provided by PV,converter is
operating in the buck mode.There are two different control

a) waveforms during charging state

Fig5 control system for stand-alone photovoltaic lighting system of

electrodeless lamp

mode as of high-current charging mode and constant-voltage

charging mode.During high-current charging buck mode,the
dc/dc converter is controlled to achieve MPPT, during
constant-voltage charging mode, the dc/dc converter is (b) waveforms of the transformer during discharging state

controlled to avoid over-charging the battery, there are the Fig.6 Simulation waveforms of battery during charging/discharging state

desired battery voltage、current reference is generated from B .Experiment results

PI1 regulator during charging mode. Experiment results are given in Fig.7a shows the main
waveforms in buck charging mode,Fig.7b shows the
When dc-dc converter operates in the boost mode,it is
waveforms of boost mode.
controlled to keep the constant high voltage side (HVS) dc

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 development in China—A review. Renewable and Sustainable Energy
Reviews 14 (2010) 301–311.
[4] Zhang xing,Tang jie. A NOVER STAND-ALONE PHOTOVOLTAIC
LIGHTING SYSTEM WITH ELECTROD-LESS DISCHARGE LAMP.
ACTA ENERGIAC SOLARIS SINICA.2009,30(2).211-216
[5] FangZ.Peng,Hui Li.A new ZVS bidirectional DC-DC converter for
fuel cell and battery application.IEEE TRANSCTIONS 2004
[6] Francisco J. Azcondo,Power-Mode-Controlled Power-Factor Correctorfor
Electronic BallastIEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL
ELECTRONICS，2005
a) waveforms during changing state
[7] Lizhi Zhu.A nover soft-commutating isolated boost full-bridge zvs-pwm
VAB dc-dc converter for bidirectional high power applications IEEE TRANS
march 2006
[8] Jin-Tae Kim,An active clamping current-fed half-bridge converter for
VCD
fuel-cell generation systems.IEEE power electronics conference 2004
[9] T.T. Chow. A review on photovoltaic/thermal hybrid solar technology.
Applied Energy 87 (2010) 365–379
Ils2
[10] Davide Brunelli, Clemens Moser, Lothar Thiele. Design of a
Solar-Harvesting Circuit for Batteryless Embedded Systems .IEEE
TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND SYSTEMS—I: REGULAR
(b) waveforms of the transformer during discharging state
PAPERS, VOL. 56, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2009.2519-2528
Fig.7 Experiment waveforms of battery during charging/discharging state
[11] Chuanhong Zhao, Simon D. Round, and Johann W. Kolar,. “An Isolated

V. CONCLUSION Three-Port Bidirectional DC-DC Converter with Decoupled Power Flow

Management,” IEEE transactions on power electronics, Zurich: Federal
The photovoltaic lighting system proposed in this paper
Institute of Technology,vol.23, pp: 2443-2453, September 2008
utilizes one converter to realize the system energy
management and battery charge and discharge control, as well
as the integration of solar energy controller .The number of
power devices used in the system is small and the structure is
simple. While the lighting system is working, all the power
devices can be operated with ZVS, the battery charge and
discharge could be reasonably controlled, and the system
efficiency is improved. The feasibility and the performance of
the proposed multiport dc/dc converter were verified by
computer simulation results and hardware experimental
measurements.
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