Access to new energy resources is one of the most important challenges in future of electrical industry. Development in energy resources and using them more efficiently result in Industrial growth and increase on human’s lifestyle level. By increase in energy consumption, its resource’s diversity and production increase too. In comparison with all kinds of energy that we use, solar energy has been given more focus than other renewable resources because it does not produce environmental pollutions, it needs minimum time for preparation and it can be converted to other kinds of energy easily. Fossil fuels will be finished and thus new energy resources should be considered. Solar cell is a renewable energy resource that converts solar energy into electrical energy. To produce electrical energy in industrial scales, solar cells will be attached together to make solar modules. Solar modules produce dc current and voltage on their outputs so it is not possible to attach them to electric grid directly. Electric Grid’s standard voltages and currents are sinusoidal, so dc voltage should be converted to ac and inverter is the key part in this conversion. Inverters must track maximum power points and inject sinusoidal current to grid. Also, high efficiency and reliability is required. There are four category for inverters in solar applications which include central inverters, string inverters, multi-string inverters and ac module inverters. Ac module inverter is the most recent technology and used in home or low power applications. These inverters require high voltage gain because they have to convert a low dc voltage to a high voltage suitable for connecting to grid. Also, high efficiency is neccesary. In this dissertation after reviewing existing inverters, a new resonant forward inverter will be proposed. In this inverter, because of resonance between elements, soft switching is achieved for the main switch. In the proposed inverter the transformer parasitic elements are used as resonant elements so its size is reduced to minimum value. The proposed inverter operating principle is discussed and inverter is designed and simulated by software and an experimental prototype is implemented in order to confirm the theoretical analysis. Keywords: Resonant Inverter, Soft Switching, AC Module
