Design and Implementation of a Suntracker Prototype for Solar Module Positioning

F. Pineda and C. A. Arredondo

* * *

Facultad de Ingeniera Electrnica y Biomdica. Universidad Antonio Nario, Bogot, Colombia

ABSTRACT This paper describes the design process and implementation of two-axis sun tracker prototype for solar modules, by sensing the point of maximum brightness of the sky with the construction of a sensor based on a geodesic dome and using a structure motion on horizontal celestial coordinates. This sensor can perform a continuous sampling of the entire sky; this allows the identifying of the brightest point of the firmament even with partially clouded sky and guiding the solar module to that point by using a two-axis drive system and running a new sampling of the sky every five minutes. The data and signals processing of the solar modules are performed by a microcontroller based system. KYWORDS: Solar tracker, photovoltaic modules, LDR, brightness sensor. INTRODUCTION Solar trackers available in market are made to follow the suns trajectory across heaven. This is a god idea in places with clear heavens like deserted areas (Dodge, 2007); however in places with patchy cloud these systems will face the presence of clouds that cover the sun and other brighter areas due to reflection as shown in figure 1.

Obviously a maximum of photogenerated energy can be obtained with direct sunlight and a clouded heaven will decrease the amount of energy provided for panels; however from other brighter areas can be obtained some energy too and the idea in this project is to take the most of it. Due to there can be several brighter areas in heaven, the light tracker must be capable to determinate which of these areas is the brightest and an appropriate sensor will do the job. A sunflower type solar tracker will only find the first brighter area and obviously a clock or gps based sun tracker is not an appropriated system for this application. The implemented system must perform a sampling of the entire heaven in real time due to the cloudiness may vary in an unpredictable mode. The motion system is a 2 axis type and uses a horizontal celestial coordinates for positioning and must be able to move the PV panels weight an face the winds effects. MATERIALS AND METHODS The system is constituted by two basic elements: the heavens brightness sensor and the motion system. The sensor establishes the set point for the position that must be taken by the motion system.

The Brightness Sensor To achieve the sampling of the entire heaven in real time the proposed sensor is constituted by a geodesic dome type structure that divides the vault of heaven in 40 sections each one of 0,16 stereo radians. Its enough to perform a reliable measurement of lighting levels in different spots of the sky in order to aim the solar module properly. To get reasonable values in accuracy and building simplicity a 2 frequencies dome structure was chosen, this was built with 40 pyramids as shown in figure 2. In the bottom of each one of these sections a LDR is used as transducer connected to build a 4 rows and 10 columns matrix. Using a pic18f1550 and bidirectional semiconductor switches this matrix is addressed to read sequentially the 40 sections and the LDRs resistance variation is converted in voltage making a series connection with a 5 mA current source. This voltage is measured using the ADC in the microcontroller to define which of the heavens sections provides more light. For

Fig. 1: Partially clouded sky with brilliant spots highlighted.

the correct performance of the system, its very important the homogeneity in the LDR response.

Fig.4: Sensors signal conditioning.

The Motion System The motion system is a two axes platform that takes the required position to aim the PV module properly. It has one geared motor for each one of the axes (azimuth and elevation). This allows a simple construction and a reliable performance.

Fig. 2: Structure of light levels sensor.

Fig.5: motion system. The microcontroller scans the LDR matrix every five minutes do determine the current state of lighting levels in the sky and determines if any position correction must be done, sending to a H bridge the signals to make the correction on the position of the solar module. The angular position sensors feedback information to the microcontroller about the current position of each one of the two axes. Fig.3 LDR or photoresistor in one of the domes sections. For azimuth that varies from 0 to 360, an 8 bit absolute encoder is used as position sensor with a resolution of 1,4. For elevation whose variation goes from 0 to 90 this role is performed by a potentiometer and 2 gears. If theres any system failure and motion systems movements go out of normal ranges, the system has start and end of travel sensors that inhibit the operation to prevent damages or malfunction of the system. The mobile platform was tested with 2 kg weight and showed the ability to handle the weight, so the 1,5 kg weight of the module is not a problem to move. Testing the operation of the system A couple 10W photovoltaic panels were used to perform the testing of the system; the main idea is to measure the power driven from each module. One of them (control module) is placed in a fixed position with

an inclination of 7 to the south. The other module (test module) is placed on the motion system. The PV panels characteristics are shown above (Raloss, 2010)

Test PV panel
Vo (test)

Power Rating: 10W Power Voltage Max: 17V Current at P Max: 590mA Open Circuit Voltage: 21.6V Short Circuit Current: 640mA Length: 356mm Width: 352mm Height: 28mm External Depth: 28mm External Length / Height: 356mm External Width: 352mm Output Power: 10W Weight Min: 1.5kg
A fixed resistor with a known value (28,8) is connected as load in each one of the PV modules and the voltages over resistors are measured on regular time intervals (5 min) using a DAQ from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. The voltage on the resistors allows knowing the instant power delivered power for the solar modules, using the expression (1): Fig.6: Test circuit.

Control PV panel
Vo (control)

Since data were registered each five minutes (1/12 of hour) the calculations was made using hours, thereby results are shown in WH (watts hour). There were made two measurements, one in a day with variably cloudy sky and other in a sunny day.

P=

V2 R

(1) Measurement of the power consumption To estimate the energy consumed by the guidance system, a record of voltages on the motion systems motors was performed. This allowed calculating the amount of energy consumed by them. The circuitry drives 35mA. To obtain the current drawn by the motor, current measurements were made directly by feeding the motors with a13.2 V battery, this yielded the following values: Current drawn by the azimuth motor = 80mA (1,056 W) Current drawn by the elevation motor = 95mA (1,254 W) With a duty cycle of 30% for the azimuth motor and 50% for elevation motor the power in each motor is: Azimuth motor power: 316,8mW Elevation motor power: 627mW

The daily energy driven is given by:

Et1t 2 = P(t ) dt
t1

t2

(2)

For the estimation of the total energy driven for each module was calculated the area under the curve using the trapezium method shown in equation (3)
N 1 (P + P )(t t ) Ed = n n+1 n n+1 2 1

(3)

Where:

Ed : Daily energy Pn : Instant power t n : Time for n measurement

N

: Number of measurements

RESULTS The first measurements were performed in a variable cloudiness day as described above. The results are shown in figure 7. The red line graphic shows the power provided by the PV panel in the orientation system (Ptest) and the blue corresponds to the control PV panel (Pcon). In the morning and the afternoon the increment in photogenerated energy can be easily viewed, in the clouded times the behavior is a little unexpected and sometimes the power provided by the test PV panel is lower than the control panel. The energy provided during the day by the panels was calculated using equation (3) and the results are: The energy calculated from the area under the curves is shown below:

Econ = 46,4WH

Etest = 63,9WH

Theres a difference of 17,4WH, its an improvement of 37,5%. In the maximum power obtained from the control panel (12:00), the test panels power is lower than the control one. This is due to the structure of the sensor with a blind point in the top. The energy consumption registered is the sum of the motors and the circuitry energy consumption and its a total of 5,23WH from 6:00 to 18:00.

Econ = 44,03WH

Etest = 53,04WH
DISCUSSION

These results shown an increment of 9,01WH (20,45%) thanks to the solar tracker respect to the fixed position PV panel.

10 8 6 4 2 0 Power(W) Power(W)

Delivered Power
Pcon Ptest

Respect to the improvement of the collected energy, the system showed a good performance with increments of 20,4% for the clouded day and 37,5% for the sunny day as is expected. However unexpected readings were obtained In some time lapses with clouded heaven as shown in figure 9 at 14:00, here are seen data that show less power for the test PV panel than those given by the control PV panel, while at 15:00 data show the opposite. At 14:00 there was a uniformly clouded heaven with a light gray color and only one brighter area, the test PV panel was oriented to this area, however the test PV panel provided less energy that the control one. At 15:00 heaven had clouds with clear areas between them, it allowed the reflection over clouds and direct sun light occasionally.

06:00 08:00 10:00 12:00 14:00 16:00 18:00 Time

Fig.7: Delivered power in a variable cloudiness day.

The second measurement, during the sunny day showed the behavior described in figure 8.

10 8 6 4 2 0

Delivered Power
Pcon Ptest

Fig.9: Response with clouded heaven. The explanation for this phenomenon can be found in the differences in spectral response of the LDR used to sense the heavens brightness and the silicon PV panels. The spectral peak of the LDRs is found in 550nm in color green-yellow (Silonex, 1998), similar to the human eye. The PV panels response goes from the violet to infrared as shown in figure 10.

06:00 08:00 10:00 12:00 14:00 16:00 18:00 Time

Fig.8: Delivered power in sunny days.

Normalized Spectral Response

Normalized response
1 0,9 0,8 0,7 0,6 0,5 0,4 0,3 0,2 0,1 0 300 500 700

REFERENCES

LDR PV panel

900

1100

(nm)
Fig.10: spectral response in CdS LDR and PV panel In a uniformly clouded heaven (14:00) the most of present radiation is diffused and composed by a wide range of frequencies. For that reason the energy provided by the solar radiation is available in frequencies with low presence of colors that can be detected by the LDR. Under direct sunlight theres a high presence of visible wavelength colors (Chen, 2004) that can be detected by LDRs as occurs in time lapses with clouds with clear zones like those present at 15:00.

Chen, A. (2004). Cool colors, cool rofs. Science Beat . Dodge, L. (2007). Performance of Solar Photovoltaic System. Retrieved 2011, from Residential Energy Laboratory. Guevara, S. (2003). Estimacin de la radiacin solar. Lima: Unatsabar. Honsberg, C., & Stuart, B. (2010). sun position calculator. Retrieved April 02, 2012, from pveducation website: http://www.pveducation.org/pvcdrom/propertie s-of-sunlight/sun-position-calculator Raloss. (2010). RALOSS - SR10-36 PANEL SOLAR, 10W. Retrieved Enero 07, 2012, from sitio web farnell: http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/95510.pdf Silonex. (1998). Norp-12 datasheet.

Fig.11: Direct sunlight composition (Chen, 2004)

For solar radiation measurement was used a Kipp & Zonen silicon pyranometer model SP Lite2 whose specifications are showd bellow: Spectral range Sensitivity Response time (95%) Directional error Temperature dependence Operating temperature range Maximum solar irradiance Field of view 400 to 1100 nm 75 0.5 V/W/m < 500 ns < 10 W/m < -0.15 %/ C -30 C to +70 C 2000 W/m 180