Real-Time Monitoring of Dual-Axis PV System Based on Internet of Things

Abstract

Photovoltaic (PV) is a device that converts sunlight into electrical energy. PV will produce electrical energy according to the amount of light intensity it receives from the sun’s rays. However, in general, PV applications are installed statically, only facing one direction. It means that the PV module cannot get the maximum light intensity throughout the day. One of the efforts that can be done so that the PV module gets the maximum sunlight intensity throughout the day is to place the PV module in a perpendicular position following the movement of the sun. This is behind the creation of real-time monitoring and power point tracking tools for solar cells. This tool uses a photoresistor (LDR) sensor as a sensor and a servo motor as the PV module position’s driving force. Sunlight hitting the LDR sensor changes its resistance so that it affects the voltage value that will be received by the microcontroller analog pin. The microcontroller processes the information received from the LDR sensor and gives commands to drive the servo motor which will drive the PV module, with two axes to follow the daily pseudo motion and annual pseudo motion of the sun. This real-time monitoring and power point tracking PV tool has been tested. This tool has been able to follow the movement of the sun from East to West, obtained power of 0.001 watts for the use of LED light loads and obtained a percentage of error on the voltage sensor of 4.19% and the current sensor of 1.19%. The results of making real time monitoring show that the performance is quite efficient than the method without tracking, with a power efficiency value of 0.00649 W and this tool can monitor real time data or retrieve data once every 1 hour and 3 hours.