Design and Performance Analysis of three Photovoltaic Systems to Improve Solar Energy Collection

This work describes the design, implementation, and characterization of a low cost, small scale solar tracking system. The designed system is a dual-axis, sensorless (open loop) solar tracker. The system was designed to be robust and portable so that it could be brought to secondary schools, where children could learn about the science, technology, and engineering that is involved in this type of systems. The solar tracker was developed during the summer 2017 by a multidisciplinary team consisting of two middle school science teachers, two electrical engineering students (undergraduate and graduate) and an engineering faculty. This project was developed a research topic of a NSF Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) in Renewable Energy (ENERGY) at Georgia southern University (GSU). The solar tracker hardware consisted of two motors, a 10 watt solar panel, an Arduino microcontroller, a Ni-Cd battery, and different type of sensors to measure temperature, humidity, position, and light intensity. A micro-SD card reader was used to collect data from the sensors. The system was able to track the position of the sun with an accuracy of +/-1°. To characterize the performance of the tracker, a comparative analysis of three photovoltaic (PV) systems was implemented. Two PV systems were fixed (at 0 and at 45 degrees), the third one was the solar tracker. The average power generated by the 0 degree angle PV system was 95mW, the 45 degree angle PV system generated an average power of 96.9mW, and the solar tracker generated 98.1mW. The comparative results showed an increase in the power generated using the solar tracker system. Although the increment in power generation was not significant in this study, the main objective of the project was met. This objective was to expose and involve secondary school teachers in research experience in renewable energy topics, and be part of a multidisciplinary research team. Furthermore, the teachers were able to transmit their knowledge gained during the summer 2017 to their secondary school students.