An Overview of Different Topologies of Multi-Port DC/DC Converters for DC Renewable Energy Source Applications

DC/DC converters are widely used in different applications such as renewable energy sources, hybrid electrical vehicles, and portable electronic devices. Recently, many researches have been done on dc/dc converters to increase the reliability and modularity and reduce the cost of these converters. The multi-port dc/dc converter is one of the common converters that widely used in dc renewable energy sources. The multi-port dc/dc converters are divided into single-input multi-output, multi-input single-output, and multi-input multi-output converters. The multi-input multi-output dc/dc converters can combine the different types of dc voltage sources with different V-I characteristics in input side and generate different levels of dc voltages at the output side. The main aim of using these converters is reducing the cost and number of power electronic components and increasing the reliability and efficiency of the overall system. Until now, different topologies of multi-port dc/dc converters have been presented. In this paper, some of the multi-port dc/dc converters are overviewed. Moreover, their advantages and disadvantages are investigated.