Design and Performance of Solar Tracking Photo-Voltaic System using Microcontroller

Solar power generation had been employed as a renewable energy for years ago. Residents that use solar power as their alternative power supply will bring benefits to them The main objective of this paper is to develop a microcontroller-based solar panel tracking system which will keep the solar panels aligned with the Sun in order to maximize in harvesting solar power without unnecessary consumption of motor energy.[1] In an ordinary solar power system the sunlight was not used to the maximum extent and so in order to take the system to the highest potential, solar tracking system was employed. This paper shows design and realization of automatic solar panel orientation system in order to achieve high performances. This can be done by keeping the solar panel at 90 degree to the sun rays. To achieve this, components like PIC microcontroller, a DC gear motor, solar panel, and a gear wheel arrangement were used. The solar tracking system operates by the comparison of voltages using solar cell array, which is connected to the PIC microcontroller. And so, the main panel rotates where the maximum light is absorbed. As a result of using this solar tracking system, the efficiency of the system was found to be increasing when compared to the system that does not use the process of solar tracking.[2]