Design and Development of Reliable and Economic Active Solar Tracking System

Abstract

The project aims at design and development of reliable and efficient active solar tracking system. The proposed single axis solar tracker device ensures the optimization of the conversion of solar energy into electricity by properly orienting the PV panel in accordance with the real position of the sun. By adopting solar tracking technique, efficiency of solar PV panel output can be increased by 25 - 30 percent as compared to normal efficiency of fixed tilt angle solar PV panel being 13 to 15 percent. It will be a horizontal single axis tracker i.e. having automatic control of solar module at elevation angle. Vertical manual seasonal adjustment will be done at azimuth angle. This tracking system is developed with LDR and low cost microcontroller making it less complex and reliable. DC gear motor will be used for rotation of solar panel providing high torque and low speed of solar panel rotation by its gear ratio adjustment for solar irradiance to fall perpendicular to the surface of solar module with rotation of sun. Thus optimization of output power and efficiency will be ensured by hardware implementation of proposed active solar tracker.