Integrating multilevel converters application on renewable energy sources—A survey

Multilevel inverters emerged as the solution for overcoming the limitations of two level inverters, such as total harmonic distortion, high magnetic interference, and high dv/dt in high power voltage applications. The ability to generate sinusoidal output voltage is another speciality of multilevel inverters. The wide range of applications in fields such as power grids, motor drives, and Volt-Ampere Reactive compensation enhances the visibility of multilevel inverters. This paper identifies the conventional multilevel inverter topologies such as diode clamped multilevel inverters, flying capacitor multilevel inverters, and cascaded H bridges and presents a literature review on the topologies considering the facts of structural and functional diversities over the ages which have been adapted right from the beginning of its emergence. It also details the various optimization technologies that are used in multilevel inverters to obtain the optimal switching angle for harmonic elimination. This paper also exp...