Photovoltaic (PV) systems with traditional energy conversion architectures are frequently forced to tradeoff energy conversion efficiency and power production. A power electronics system architecture called differential power processing (DPP) parallelizes dc-dc converters with the PV string to increase power yield. The characteristics of this type of connection, such as its low rating for used converters and its minimal power loss, make DPP particularly appropriate for submodule-level maximum power point tracking (MPPT).
Since this DPP concept has been introduced for PV systems, Diverse topologies and control algorithms have been developed and verified since the DPP concept for PV systems was first established, proving the advantages of DPP converter systems over current series string and full power processing converter solutions. This paper presents the theory and implementation of the DPP and different topologies of series DPP connection with comparison between them.
More recently, several differential power processing (DPP) architectures have been suggested. There are two classes of these DPP architectures: PV-to-PV DPP architectures where converters interface adjacent sections of the PV string