The cascaded multilevel inverter may be the best topology to satisfy continuously increasing capacity and scale of grid-connected photovoltaic generation system due to its modularized circuit layout and sufficiently high operating voltage without devices in series. The operating principle of the cascaded multilevel inverter is presented. The control strategy of carrier phase shift PWM is proposed and discussed in detail. A grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) generation system based on a seven level cascaded inverter is provided. Simulation model of a seven level cascaded inverter with phase shifted PWM is built in Simulink environment and simulation results verify that the cascaded multilevel inverter can output high level voltage without devices in series, reduce harmonics, and output high quality waveforms.
