Output power enhancement of solar PV panel using solar tracking system

Abstract

Solar Photovoltaic (PV) energy conversion has gained much attention nowadays. The output power of PV panel depends on the condition under which the panel is working, such as solar radiation, ambient temperature, dust, wind speed and humidity. The amount of falling sunlight on the panel surface (i.e., solar radiation) directly affects its output power. In order to maximize the amount of falling sunlight on the panel surface, a solar tracking PV panel system is introduced. This paper describes the design, development and fabrication of the solar PV panel tracking system. The designed solar tracking system is able to track the position of the sun throughout the day, which allows more sunlight falling on the panel surface. The experimental results show that there was an enhancement of up to a 64.72% in the output power of the PV panel with reference to the fixed orientation PV panel. Further, this study also demonstrates that the full load torque of the tracking system would be much higher than the obtained torque, which is required to track the position of the sun. This propounds, that the proposed tracking system can also be used for a higher capacity PV power generation system. © 2019 Bentham Science Publishers.