DC-DC Converter Design for Solar Power in Hot Environments

Abstract: A company in Linköping has a project where a solar power home system is designed. The plan is that families that lack grid connection in rural areas of Mali and other countries shall use this system for cooking food and powering every day items. Designing a solar home system for West Africa is more difficult than for other parts of the world, mainly because of the climate, with heat and dust particles in the air, but also because the installation location often is unreachable in short notice. This makes for several specific requirements like high ambient temperature, passive cooling, high efficiency and a long mean time between service needed. On top of this, to get the system modular and easy to install, each physical panel should be independent and smart. The system designed is a push pull dc step-up converter that can be assembled to the back of a solar panel. A base platform for the converter is built and a method of power line communication is proposed. Tests show promising results and further development is ongoing.