| Abstract: | The power demand in Japan increases yearly especially in summer, and peaks in the daytime. The main cause is the drastically increased load of air conditioners used widely in general residences. The load pattern of air conditioners is very similar to the output pattern of a photovoltaic (PV) array. Therefore, Sanyo has been developing two types of residential solar-powered air conditioners. One is a unidirectional system by using a dc/dc converter which controls the voltage of a PV array at its optimal operation point and boosts the voltage up to the dc voltage of an inverter-type air conditioner. The other is a bi-directional system by using a bi-directional current-control converter, which regenerates surplus power into a commercial system from a PV array, and suppresses the input current distortion of an air conditioner. In this paper, the configurations and experimental results are described and discussed. |
