A Lumped, Resonant Switched Capacitor Converter

This paper considers the output short-circuit protection of a Series-Parallel (S-P), switched capacitor converter for interfacing high-power PV farms and/or MV DC micro-grids. A so-called active interrupter can be used to isolate the converter from the fault; however, the inductor associated with this interrupter can used as the resonant inductor for the circuit, offering potential savings in inductor size/weight/cost and losses. A number of alternative S-P topologies were devised, which were compared against the existing circuit. Results from a scaled hardware prototype are presented, which highlights a number of practical issues related to circuit parasitcs.