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Old 08-20-14, 07:26 PM   #61
NiHaoMike
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Solar panels are inherently DC, meaning they require an inverter for powering AC loads. The trapezoidal waveform allows the inverter to have a very high efficiency.

Actually, I looked it up and digital PFC is more common than I thought.
Energy Control - Digital Power Factor Correction

Enhanced efficiency analog PFC has a circuit that varies the cut in threshold according to load. For a fixed load (like non dimmable) lighting, that functionality would be trivial to implement. I don't know of a single chip to do it (over varying loads), but it can be implemented by adding a few opamps around a common analog PFC controller.

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