Automatic Solar Tracker with Dust Wiper Using PID Controller

The Earth receives 174 peta watts PW of incoming solar radiation at the upper atmosphere. Approximately 30 is reflected back to space while the rest is absorbed. Solar energy is an alternative for fossil fuels as it is non polluting, clean, reliable and renewable source of energy. It does not pollute the air by releasing harmful gases like carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide or sulphur oxide. So, the risk of damage to the environment is reduced. Thus the use of solar devices was more suggested and the traffic signal and street lights in villages was installed using solar panel but the solar PV modules are generally employed in the dusty environments and the dust gets accumulated on the front surface of the module and blocks the incident light form the sun and it reduces the power generation capacity of the module, the power output reduces if the module is not cleaned for a regularly. In order to regularly clean the dust, this research presents a control application of a sun tracker that is able to follow the sun with high accuracy and clean the dust on the panel without the necessity of either a precise procedure of installation or recalibration. The designed tracking system consists of sensors, microcontroller, drivers for dc motors and gear bearing arrangements with supports and mountings. DC motor is used to move the system panel so that sun's beam is able to remain aligned with the solar panel and also clean the dust on the panel which improves the efficiency of the solar panel. Simulation and experimental results are obtained to a low cost single axis solar tracker and are exposed. Energy saving factors are taken into account, which implies that, among other factors, the sun is not constantly tracked with the same accuracy, to prevent energy over consumption by the motors. Kavya S Gogi | Maheshan CM | H Prasanna Kumar "Automatic Solar Tracker with Dust Wiper Using PID Controller" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-2 | Issue-1 , December 2017, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd7197.pd