  Renewable energy source such as photovoltaic (PV) cell generates power from
the sun light by converting solar power to electrical power with no moving
parts and less maintenance. A single photovoltaic cell produces voltage of low
level. In order to boost up the voltage, a DC-DC boost converter is used. In
order to use this DC-DC converter for high voltage and high frequency
applications, Silicon Carbide (SiC) device is most preferred because of larger
current carrying capability, higher voltage blocking capability, high operating
temperature and less static and dynamic losses than the traditional silicon
(Si) power switches. In the proposed work, the static and dynamic
characteristics of SiC MOSFET for different temperatures are observed. A SiC
MOSFET based boost converter is investigated which is powered by PV source.
This DC - DC converter is controlled using a Pulse-Width Method (PWM) and the
duty cycle d is calculated for tracking the maximum power point using
incremental conductance algorithm of the PV systems implemented in FPGA.
Simulation studies are carried out in MATLAB/SIMULINK.A prototype of the SiC
converter is built and the results are verified experimentally. The performance
parameters of the proposed converter such as output voltage ripple input
current ripple and losses are computed and it is compared with the classical
silicon (Si) MOSFET converter.
