Performance Enhancement of Mini Agri-voltaic System for Roof Top Garden

Abstract

The Agri-voltaic (AV) is an emerging technology to harness the solar energy. The performance of the AV modules depends on the incident solar radiation, geographical location and the surface temperature of the modules. The performance of the AV system needs to be monitored by manually or embedded controllers. The commercially available technologies for monitoring the system is costlier and need to be optimised. The Arduino controller is used to monitor the performance of the photovoltaic (PV) system in Coimbatore (11.0160 N, 76.95580 E), Tamilnadu, India. The PV surface temperature is monitored and controlled by flowing the water above the module by setting the mean ambient temperature as a reference temperature 34 °C when the system exceeds the reference temperature. PV surface temperature is reduced up to 16°C thus improved the electrical efficiency by 17% compare to the reference module. The Arduino controller control the relay to switch on the motor to control the mass flow rate of the water at 0.0028kg/s. The various parameters are measured such as voltage, current and solar radiation of the location and analysed. The estimated cost of monitoring system and various sensor is 10$ which cost comparatively 50% lower than the other PV monitoring controllers. This method can be employed in the medium and large-scale irrigation system.