Patent ID: 8811047

Claim:
A solar power conditioning unit for delivering power from a solar or photovoltaic panel dc power source to an ac mains power supply, the power conditioning unit comprising: a power conditioning unit input for receiving power from said dc power source; a power conditioning unit output for delivering ac power to said ac mains power supply; a film-type energy storage capacitor; a dc-to-dc converter having an input connection coupled to said dc power source at said power conditioning unit input and an output connection coupled to the energy storage capacitor; a dc-to-ac converter having an input connection coupled to said energy storage capacitor and an output connection coupled to said ac mains power supply at said power conditioning unit output; a power extraction first control block to control said dc-to-dc converter to control power extracted from said dc power source and provided to said energy storage capacitor; and a power injection second control block to control said dc-to-ac converter to control power injected into said ac mains power supply from said energy storage capacitor, wherein said power extraction first control block has an input coupled to said dc power source at said power conditioning unit input for receiving power from said dc power source and has an output to control said dc-to-dc converter and is configured to regulate a voltage of said dc power source to control power extracted from said dc power source to said energy storage capacitor, wherein the power injection second control block regulates a voltage from across said energy storage capacitor such that the voltage remains higher than a peak amplitude voltage of said ac mains power supply during operation of the solar power conditioning unit.