Solar tracking systems: Technologies and trackers drive types – A review

Hafez, A.Z.; Yousef, Amr; Harag, N.M.

doi:10.1016/j.rser.2018.03.094

Cited by 231 publications

(107 citation statements)

References 95 publications

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“…If the solar rays do not fall vertically on the solar panel of the tracking system, there will be a difference in the intensity of light falling on one sensor compared to the other sensors. As a result, the motor receives a signal from the Arduino board to move the solar panel toward vertical alignment of the solar rays [5]. A passive tracking system does not use any motors, gears, or controllers.…”

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confidence: 99%

ANN for Assessment of Energy Consumption of 4 kW PV Modules over a Year Considering the Impacts of Temperature and Irradiance

2019

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Solar energy is considered the greatest source of renewable energy. In this paper, a case study was performed for a single-axis solar tracking model to analyze the performance of the solar panels in an office building under varying ambient temperatures and solar radiation over the course of one year (2018). This case study was performed in an office building at the College of Engineering at Shaqra University, Dawadmi, Saudi Arabia. The office building was supplied with electricity for a full year by the designed solar energy system. The study was conducted across the four seasons of the studied year to analyze the performance of a group of solar panels with the total capacity of a 4 kW DC system. The solar radiation, temperature, output DC power, and consumed AC power of the system were measured using wireless sensor networks (for temperature and irradiance measurement) and a signal acquisition system for each hour throughout the whole day. A single-axis solar tracker was designed for each panel (16 solar panels were used) using two light-dependent resistors (LDR) as detecting light sensors, one servo motor, an Arduino Uno, and a 250 W solar panel installed with an array tilt angle of 21 • . Finally, an artificial neural network (ANN) was utilized to estimate energy consumption, according to the dataset of AC load power consumption for each month and the measurement values of the temperature and irradiance. The relative error between the measured and estimated energy was calculated in order to assess the accuracy of the proposed ANN model and update the weights of the training network. The maximum absolute relative error of the proposed system did not exceed 2 × 10 −4 . After assessment of the proposed model, the ANN results showed that the average energy in the region of the case study from a 4 kW DC solar system for one year, considering environmental impact, was around 8431 kWh/year. Sustainability 2019, 11, 6802 2 of 24 to develop previously discovered energy sources to eliminate the damage caused by non-renewable sources and to also compensate for the depletion of non-renewable resources in the future [1,2]. Solar energy has always been a promising source of renewable energy. It continues to attract research into its optimal development and utilization as a result of the good response and remarkable developments in solar energy systems to date. There has been a consistent, significant increase in the number of researchers investigating photovoltaic (PV) solar cells. In recent years, significant and remarkable developments have been observed in solar energy systems, which have led to a significant increase in the renewable energy market, with more solar energy systems being installed [3]. According to the REN21 (2018) Global Status Report, 2017 was a very important year in the field of solar energy, representing the increase of solar energy system installation above any other renewable energy technology. According to this report, at least 98 GW of grid-connected and off-grid solar energy systems were installe...

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ANN for Assessment of Energy Consumption of 4 kW PV Modules over a Year Considering the Impacts of Temperature and Irradiance

2019

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“…The maximum power point tracking (MPPT) controllers are the most widely used devices in this context; detailed literature of the several MPPT approaches can be found in Increase the collection of solar radiation by the PV panels . PV panel is placed at a fixed angle and while the collected energy depends on the PV panel position relative to the sun, there is a big loss of energy (10%‐100%) due to the changing of the sun angle relative to the PV panel …”

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A simple and low‐cost active dual‐axis solar tracker

Hammoumi

Motahhir

Ghzizal

et al. 2018

Energy Science & Engineering

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This paper presents the design and practical implementation of a simple active dual‐axis solar tracker (DAST) to track the sun's movement by using fewer components and low‐cost as well. A dual‐axis mechanism is developed in order to tilt the PV panel by two servo motors facing the highest intensity of sunlight captured by LDR sensors, which are placed in the four corners of PV panel. The DAST prototype was constructed practically and tested using a real‐time virtual instrument based on Excel to determine its efficiency. Moreover, a comparison based on experimental results between the energy produced by the proposed smart DAST and a fixed panel shows that the smart DAST produces 36.26% more energy compared to the fixed panel. The proposed active DAST can be easily implemented without possessing deep knowledge about solar tracking technologies and electronic engineering.

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“…The position of the Sun is not fixed to one place because it changes its position from dawn to dusk and also during the entire year, which means that a fixed PV system is inefficient. Therefore, the tracking of single-and dual-axis PV systems are suggested for this purpose [7,8]. On the other hand, such a system has two disadvantages, increase in initial cost and decreased lifetime of the mechanical parts of the PV system.…”

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“…On the other hand, such a system has two disadvantages, increase in initial cost and decreased lifetime of the mechanical parts of the PV system. Moreover, such a system also requires extra power supply and motors to move the solar system, which makes the system more complex and increases the size of the PV system, making it unrealistic for commercialization [8,9].Another way is to reflect the light onto the PV module to increase the efficiency of BIPV systems. This system will increase the sunlight flux intensity per unit area on the BIPV, resulting in an amplified output power, which would allow a decrease in the size and cost of the PV module.…”

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Design of a Building-Integrated Photovoltaic System with a Novel Bi-Reflector PV System (BRPVS) and Optimal Control Mechanism: An Experimental Study

et al. 2018

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Environment protection and energy saving are the most attractive trends in zero-carbon buildings. The most promising and environmentally friendly technique is building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), which can also replace conventional buildings based on non-renewable energy. Despite the recent advances in technology, the cost of BIPV systems is still very high. Hence, reducing the cost is a major challenge. This paper examines and validates the effectiveness of low-cost aluminum (Al) foil as a reflector. The design and the performance of planer-reflector for BIPV systems are analyzed in detail. A Bi-reflector solar PV system (BRPVS) with thin film Al-foil reflector and an LLC converter for a BIPV system is proposed and experimented with a 400-W prototype. A cadmium-sulfide (CdS) photo-resistor sensor and an Arduino-based algorithm was developed to control the working of the reflectors. Furthermore, the effect of Al-foil reflectors on the temperature of PV module has been examined. The developed LLC converter confirmed stable output voltage despite large variation in input voltage proving its effectiveness for the proposed BRPVS. The experimental results of the proposed BRPVS with an Al-reflector of the same size as that of the solar PV module offered an enhancement of 28.47% in the output power.Electronics 2018, 7, 119 2 of 22 the long-term cost of the building sector. Compared to a standalone PV system, BIPV does not require any extra land for installation and the cost can be balanced by installing this on the rooftop of the building structure [3]. However, the lower efficiency and higher initial cost make BIPV less practical and difficult to commercialize. Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSSCs) have attracted considerable attention in recent years because of their simple assembly, lightweight, flexibility, economical price of materials, satisfactory photocurrent transformation efficiency, precise energy return time, and tunable optical properties [4]. On the other hand, DSSCs have power conversion efficiency of more than 14% with a limited active area; the output power decreases with increasing cell effective area of the photoanode [5]. An alternate solution exists to increase the net output power from the PV module to reduce the cost of the system because the initial cost of the PV system is the main hurdle to the widespread use of this technology. The output power can be increased by increasing the incident light on the PV system [6]. The position of the Sun is not fixed to one place because it changes its position from dawn to dusk and also during the entire year, which means that a fixed PV system is inefficient. Therefore, the tracking of single-and dual-axis PV systems are suggested for this purpose [7,8]. On the other hand, such a system has two disadvantages, increase in initial cost and decreased lifetime of the mechanical parts of the PV system. Moreover, such a system also requires extra power supply and motors to move the solar system, which makes the system more complex and increases the size of the ...

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Solar tracking systems: Technologies and trackers drive types – A review

Cited by 231 publications

References 95 publications

ANN for Assessment of Energy Consumption of 4 kW PV Modules over a Year Considering the Impacts of Temperature and Irradiance

ANN for Assessment of Energy Consumption of 4 kW PV Modules over a Year Considering the Impacts of Temperature and Irradiance

A simple and low‐cost active dual‐axis solar tracker

Design of a Building-Integrated Photovoltaic System with a Novel Bi-Reflector PV System (BRPVS) and Optimal Control Mechanism: An Experimental Study

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