Reactive Power Injection Capability of Buck–Boost Inverter With Unfolding Circuit

New emerging power inverter topologies are aiming at high-power density and efficiency with reliable performance. The recently proposed family of single-phase single-stage buck–boost inverters with output unfolding circuits have promising features for application in different fields. Nevertheless, the incapacity of injecting reactive power by the classical unfolding inverters has been assumed as its main drawback. Thus, our focus is on the reactive power injection capability of the single-stage buck–boost inverters with unfolding circuits. This attribute enables the converter to provide some extra ancillary services for friendly integration of the renewable energy resources and energy storage systems, providing support to the smart grid/microgrid, thus contributing to its power quality welfare. By means of a comprehensive analysis and implementation of proper closed-loop model predictive control, together with an adequate selection of the output capacitor, the single-inductor unfolding buck–boost inverter is capable of delivering reactive power to the utility grid. We used the simulation and experimental tests to validate the theoretical aspects.