Common-Mode Voltage Analysis and Reduction for the Quasi-Z-Source Inverter with a Split Inductor

In transformerless grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) systems, leakage currents should be properly addressed. The voltage fluctuations between the neutral point of the grid and the PV array, i.e., common-mode voltage (CMV), will affect the value of the leakage currents. Therefore, the leakage currents can be attenuated through proper control of the CMV. The CMV depends on the converter topology and the modulation strategy. For the quasi-Z-source inverter (qZSI), the amplitude of the high-frequency components in the CMV increases due to the extra shoot-through (ST) state. The CMV reduction strategies for the conventional voltage source inverter (VSI) should be modified when applied to the qZSI. In this paper, an input-split-inductor qZSI is introduced to reduce the CMV, in which all the CMV reduction strategies for the VSI can be used directly with appropriate ST state insertion. Moreover, the proposed method can be extended to impedance source converters with a similar structure. Simulations and experimental tests demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy for the qZSI in terms of CMV reduction.