ICSET 2008
Leakage current analysis of a single-phase transformer-less PV
inverter connected to the grid
Lin Ma, Fen Tang, Fei Zhou, Xinmin Jin and Yibin Tong
1
Abstract Due to the large surface of the PV generator, its
stray capacity with respect to the ground reaches values that can
be quite high. When no transformer is used in a grid-connected
PV system, common-mode current, which caused by the common
mode voltage, can flow through the stray capacitance between the
PV array and the ground. It is quite harmful to the body safety
and PV system. In order to avoid leakage current, different
inverter topologies that generate no varying common-mode
voltages, such as bipolar pulse-width modulation (PWM)
full-bridge topology, NPC topology have been proposed. From
the safety and energy saving viewpoint, it is necessary to develop
a higher efficiency topology.
In this paper, the generation mechanism of common mode
current is discussed. Then different methods used to eliminate the
leakage current are compared. Finally, the full-bridge which
generates no varying common-mode voltage and requires the
same low-input voltage as the bipolar PWM full-bridge is given.
The proposed topology has been verified in the simulation based
on M$7/$% with satisfactory results.
I. INTRODUCTION
Worldwide, grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) systems,
particularly low-power single-phase systems (up to 5 kW) are
becoming more and more important. Many companies have
developed related products such as Germany SMA Crop.
SB2500, Sunny Boy Crop. SWR 2500U and Chinese Sun
Light Crop. SG2.5KTL.
The users are usually private consumers where the owner
tries to get the maximum system profitability. Issues such as
reliability, high efficiency, small size and weight, and low
price are of great importance to the conversion stage of the PV
system. An inverter with higher efficiency, smaller size and
weight, and a lower price is possible in case the transformer is
left out. The transformer-less solutions offer all the above
mentioned advantages, but there are some safety issues due to
the solar panel parasitic capacitance. The value of parasitic
capacitance depends on many factors; some of these are
enumerated below: PV panel and frame structure, surface of
cells, distance between cells, module frame, weather
conditions, humidity and dust covering the PV panel.
Quite often, these grid-connected PV systems include a line
transformer in the power-conversion stage, which guarantees
galvanic isolation between the grid and the PV system, thus
providing personal protection. Furthermore, it strongly
reduces the leakage current between the PV system and the
ground, ensures that no continuous current is injected into the
Manuscript Leakage Current Analysis of a Single-phase Transformer-less
PV Inverter Connected to the Grid received 6 May 2008.
Lin Ma, Guest PhD of IET, Aalborg University, Pontoppidanstraede
101/78, 9220 Aalborg East, Denmark, phone: +45 9940 9252, e-mail:
mlin@iet.aau.dk.
Fen Tang, Fei Zhou, Xinmin Jin, Yibin Tong, School of Electrical
EngineeringBeijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China, e-mail:
06117294@bjtu.edu.cn.
285
978-1-4244-1888-6/08/$25.00 
c 2008 IEEE
grid, and can be used to increase the inverter output voltage
level. The line transformer makes possible the use of a
full-bridge inverter with unipolar pulse-width modulation
(PWM). The inverter is simple. It requires only four insulated
gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) and has a good trade-off
between efficiency, complexity and price.
But due to its low frequency, line transformer is large,
heavy and expensive. Technological evolution has made
possible the implementation, within the inverters, of both
ground-fault detection systems and solutions to avoid injecting
dc current into the grid.
In this paper, the generation mechanism of common mode
current is discussed. Then different methods used to eliminate
the leakage current are compared. Finally, the full-bridge with
dc-bypass (FB-DCBP) topology mentioned in [4] which
generates no varying common-mode voltage and requires the
same low-input voltage as the bipolar PWM full-bridge is
given. The proposed topology has been verified in the
simulation based on Matlab with satisfactory results.
II. COMMON-MODE LEAKAGE CURRENT
When no transformer is used, a galvanic connection
between the ground of the grid and the PV array exists. As
a result, a common-mode resonant circuit appears,
consisting of the stray capacitor between the PV modules
and the ground, the dc and ac filter elements, and the grid
impedance (Fig.1). A varying common-mode voltage can
excite this resonant circuit and generate a common-mode
current.
The value of parasitic capacitance depends on many
factors; some of these are enumerated below: PV panel and
frame structure, surface of cells, distance between cells,
module frame, weather conditions, humidity and dust
covering the PV panel.
Fig. 1 Common-mode current in a transformer-less system
In [1], it is mentioned that a typical value of 100-200pF
exists between the PV cells and the ground. But on
condition that the surface of the panels is covered with
water, this capacitance will increase to 9nF, 60 times its
previous value. In case of a solar array having a
considerable surface, the resulting capacitance will have
values between 50-150 nF/kW, depending on the weather
conditions and panel structure. Step2Leakage current calculation
According to the German DIN VDE 0126-1-1 standard,
in case of transformer-less PV inverters connected to the According to Superposition Theorem, the total leakage
grid, there needs to be a Residual Current Monitoring Unit current icm1 is the sum of icm1, icm2, and icm3, which are
(RCMU), which is sensitive for DC and AC currents and generated by the gird and two PWM voltage sources
can sense DC fault currents. It must be possible to respectively.
disconnect PV systems from the grid within 0.3s when the
leakage current with respect to ground (peak value) is icm = icm1 + icm 2 + icm 3 (1)
greater than 300mA as shown in TABLE 1.

TABLE 1 Leakage current mean levels and corresponding

disconnection times (DIN VDE 0126- 1-1)

Leakage current average Disconnect times

value mA
30 0.3
60 0.15
100 0.04

References [3]-[5] show that in the single phase full

bridge circuit, to avoid leakage current, common-mode
voltage must be kept constant during all commutation states,
that is to say, vcm = 1 (v AO + v BO ) = cte , but the principle is
2
not given. The explanation is given as follows:
Fig. 4 Equivalent circuit of leakage current generated by the grid

B L/2

vAO

O
Cp
Icm

Fig. 2 Common-mode leakage current model of single phase full

bridge system L/2 L/2
A
Step1Simplified common-mode leakage current model Icm2

In full bridge circuit, voltages VAO and VBO are vAO Cp

controlled by four switches S1~S4. When the upper switch

O B
is on, the corresponding voltage is equal to the dc bus
voltage, while the lower switch is on, and voltage is zero. Fig. 5 Equivalent circuit of leakage current generated by two PWM
Therefore, we can replace the DC bus and switches with voltage sources
two PWM voltage sources as shown in Fig.3. As shown in Fig.4, the leakage current icm1 generated by
the grid can be given as:

Fig. 3 Simplified common-mode leakage current model of single

phase full bridge system

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 1 commutation states, leakage current could be restricted to
v grid j g L
icm1 = 2 nearly zero (ignore the leakage current caused by the grid).
1 1 1 1 We can also use (5) to calculate the leakage current.
j g L j g L +
1 2 j C 2 j Cp
j g L + g p g
(2) 1
2 1 1 v cm = (v AO + v BO ) = cet
j g L +
2 j g C p 2 (7)
1
j v grid
= 2
1 1
gL +
4 gCp

As shown in Fig.5, the leakage current icm2 and icm3

generated by the PWM voltage sources can be given as:

1
j v AO
2 (3)
icm 2 =
1 1 Fig. 6 Equivalent circuit of common-mode leakage current
L + model
4 C p

1
j v BO III. TRADITIONAL TOPOLOGY LEAKAGE CURRENT ANALYSIS
2 (4)
icm 3 =
1 1
L + All parameters in the simulation model are given as: L=20mH, switching
4 C p frequency f=8kHz, grid frequency fg=60Hz, stray capacitance Cp=200nF, grid
voltage Vgrid=220V, DC bus voltage Vdc=400V

Compared to the switching frequency, the grid

frequency is low, thus icm1 could be ignored.
In an experiment prototype, where the inductor
L=20mH, switching frequency f=8kHz, grid frequency
fg=60Hz, stray capacitance Cp=200nF, grid voltage
Vgrid=220V, DC bus voltage Vdc=400V, the leakage currents
have the following relationship: icmicm2/200icm3/200. In
many literatures, the leakage current caused by the grid is
not discussed, but it truly exists, even the common-mode
voltage kept constant during all commutation states.
Step3Equivalent circuit of common-mode leakage current
model
Combined with (3) and (4), the total leakage current icm
can be given as:
j v cm
i cm =
1 1
cm L +
4 C p cm
5 switching frequency. According to (7), if the switching
1 in the common-mode voltage and no leakage currents are
v cm = (v AO + v BO )
2 6
According to (5), equivalent circuit of common-mode
leakage current model can be obtained in Fig.6.
As shown in Fig.6, we can draw a conclusion that if the
common-mode voltage kept constant during all
The full-bridge inverter (Fig.2) is a single stage dc-ac
conversion topology, which is widely used in PV inverters.
Different PWM techniques can be applied to this topology,
which can be classified in two groups unipolar and bipolar
PWM. In unipolar techniques, S4 is on during the positive
half cycle, while switches S1 and S2 commutate at the
switching frequency. During the negative cycle, S2 is on
and S3 and S4 commutate at the switching frequency. The
corresponding waveforms are shown in Fig. 7. In these
converters, only two switches are on at the same time, and
only one IGBT and one diode commutate at the switching
frequency with the whole input voltage. The main
drawback, as shown in Fig.7, is that it generates a varying
common-mode voltage of amplitude Vdc/2 at the switching
frequency. When a line transformer is applied in these
converters, unipolar PWM techniques can be applied. If the
transformer is not used, the leakage current icm would not
be controlled, as shown in Fig.8.
In the bipolar PWM techniques, the diagonal pairs of
switches S1S4 and S2S3 are switched alternatively at the
actions are carried out at the same time, no changes appear
generated. However, the bipolar PWM also has drawbacks.
Two IGBTs and two diodes are switching at the switching
frequency with the whole input voltage, therefore doubling
the switching losses. Additionally, the output voltage
changes between Vpv and -Vpv , creating a current ripple
twice that obtained in the unipolar modulation (Fig.9).

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Fig. 7 Simulation waveforms of transformer full-bridge with
unipolar PWM
from top to down, inductor current, vAB, vAO+vBO, icm
Fig. 8 Simulation waveforms of transformer-less full-bridge with
unipolar PWM
from top to down, inductor current, vAB, vAO+vBO, icm
Fig. 9 Simulation waveforms of transformer-less full-bridge with
bipolar PWM
from top to down, inductor current, vAB, vAO+vBO, icm
In order to keep the common mode voltage constant, the
commercial transformer-less PV converters mainly employ
the bipolar topology, such as SWR 2500U. However,
bipolar PWM reduces the full bridge efficiency to 95.3%
and requires a bigger inductor than the unipolar
modulation.
A novel topology combined the merits of both unipolar
and bipolar, which does not generate the leakage as bipolar
topology and have the same output current wave quality as
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unipolar topology, is introduced in the following section.
IV. FB-DCBP TOPOLOGY
Fig.10 shows the proposed topology named full-bridge
with dc-bypass (FB-DCBP) which first introduced in [4]. In
this topology, diodes D7, D8 and the capacitive divisor
limit the blocking voltage of S5 and S6 to half of the input
voltage Vdc. Grid-connected PV systems usually operate
with unity power factor. The operational principle of the
proposed converter is now analyzed for this case. The
proposed topology with the modulation technique described
below can operate with power factors other than unity. In
these cases, the operation analysis would be similar.
In the positive half cycle, S1 and S4 are on. In order to
modulate the input voltage, S5 and S6 commutate at the
switching frequency with the same commutation orders. S2
and S3 commutate at the switching frequency together and
complementary to S5 and S6. In this situation, when S5 and
S6 are on, VAB=Vdc and the inductor current, which flows
through S5, S1, S4 and S6, increases. The common-mode
voltage is
1 1 1
v cm = (v AO + v BO ) = (v dc + 0) = v dc (8)
2 2 2
When S5 and S6 are turned off and S2 and S3 are
turned on, the current splits into two paths: S1 and the
freewheeling diode of S3, and S4 and the freewheeling
diode of S2. Thus, S2 and S3 are turned on with no current
and therefore no switching losses appear. In this situation,
voltages VAB and VCD tend to zero and diodes D7 and D8
fix the voltages VAO and VBO to Vdc/2. Since VAB is
clamped to zero the current decreases. Now, the
common-mode voltage is
1 1 1 1
v cm = (v AO + v BO ) = v dc + v dc = v dc (9)
2 2 2 2
Fig. 10 Proposed topology: full bridge with dc-bypass
 Gonzalez, Jesus Lopes, Poblo Sanchis, High-Efficiency
Transformerless Single-phase Photovoltaic Inverter [C], EPE-PEMC
2006, pp.1895-1900.
[2] Barbel Epp, "Big crowds [J]", Sun & Wind energy, February 2005, pp.
69-77.
[3] Soeren Baekhoej Kjaer A Review of Single-Phase Grid-Connected
Inverters for Photovoltaic Modules [J]IEEE transactions on industry
applications2005 Vol.41pp.1292-1306.
[4] Gonzalez, R.; Lopez, J.; Sanchis, P.; Marroyo, L, Transformer-less
Inverter for Single-Phase Photovoltaic Systems [J], Power Electronics,
IEEE Transactions on Volume 22, Issue 2, March 2007, pp.693
697.
[5] Kerekes, T.; Teodorescu, R.; Borup, U, Transformer-less Photovoltaic
Inverters Connected to the Grid [C], Applied Power Electronics
Conference, APEC 2007 - Twenty Second Annual IEEE, Feb. 2007,
pp.1733 1737
Fig. 11 Simulation waveforms of FB-DCBP topology
from top to down, inductor current, vAB, vAO+vBO, icm

In the negative half cycle, the working mode is similar.

As shown in Fig.11, this topology generates no
common-mode voltage. Therefore, it allows the use of a
small common-mode filter, which is only necessary to
avoid currents caused by switching mismatch, power
supply, etc. And as the switching voltage half the bipolar
switch voltage, so the output filter L could be reduced.

V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, the principle of the common-mode
leakage current analysis is given, and different methods
used to eliminate the leakage current are compared.. Then,
a novel transformer-less topology is introduced.
Grid-connected photovoltaic systems usually include a
line transformer in their power conversion stage. This
transformer guarantees galvanic isolation between the grid
and the PV system, thus providing personal protection and
avoiding leakage currents between the PV system and the
ground. Furthermore, it also ensures that no continuous
current is injected into the grid. However, because of its
low frequency (60 Hz), the transformer is big, heavy and
expensive. The evolution of the technology has made
possible the use of an inverter without the line transformer
and no impact on the characteristics of the system
concerning personal safety and grid integration.
If no transformer is used, it is necessary to develop
new inverter topologies, as simple as possible, that avoid
common-mode voltages.
The full-bridge with dc-bypass (FB-DCBP)
single-phase PV inverter with six IGBTs and two diodes is
proposed. This topology generates no common-mode
voltage and has a higher efficiency (compared to bipolar
topologies). The topology has been validated by simulation
with MATLAB Simulink, and now it is being constructed
to verify the experimental results.

VI. REFERENCES
[1] H. Schmidt, B. Burger, Chr. Siedle; Gefahrdungspotenzial
transformatorloser Wechselrichter- Fakten und Geruchte, 18 Symposium
Photovoltaische Sonnenenergie, Staffelstein, Germany 2003.Roberto

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