Analysis of Single Axis Sun Tracker System to Increase Solar Photovoltaic Energy Production in the Tropics

Abstract

The utilization of Solar Photovoltaic (SPV) generation system is generally installed at some certain tilted angles, therefore it does not obtain the optimum solar radiation from the sun. In order to overcome this weakness, the SPV generation system that is equipped with a single axis sun tracker was designed and analyzed in this paper. The sun tracker system has two LDR sensors to estimate the position of the sun. Arduino Uno 3 was implemented as a controller system. The Arduino Uno 3 instructs a servo motor to drive SPV panel from the east to the west to track the movement of the sun in a similar direction. In order to understand the energy gain of single axis sun tracker, it has been compared with SPV generation system installed at the certain number of tilted angles. It can be noted from the results that the SPV generation system with single axis sun tracker has a significant increase in energy production than without tracker where its energy gain is up to 22%. Therefore, it can be concluded that there is a promising potential increase in energy when the SPV panel is equipped with the single axis sun tracker generally in tropical regions.