Evaluation of Energy Efficiency in Photovoltaic Panels with Solar Tracker Based on Diffuse Control

Abstract

The objective of this work was to evaluate the efficiency of the energy produced by photovoltaic (PV) panels with solar tracker based on fuzzy control versus a fixed position PV panel with azimuth: −23.45° and elevation: 12.39°, in the city of Pampas-Tayacaja Huancavelica Peru at 3660 meters above sea level with a south latitude: 12. 39522° and west longitude: 74.87266°. An experimental prototype of a solar tracker was implemented, with an algorithm embedded in a PIC 18F4550 microcontroller; this microcontroller sends pulses to the longitudinal positioning motor driver and latitudinal positioning motor driver. The first motor, powered with 12 Vdc and current consumption of 1.5 A, produces the movement from east to west and vice versa; the second motor, with the same electrical characteristics as the first one, generates movements from north to south and vice versa. The data acquired from the Light Dependent Resistive (LDR) sensors were sent by the microcontroller to the fuzzy logic controller implemented with the LabVIEW fuzzy system designer tool via USB communication. When evaluated, the efficiency of the PV panel with proposed fuzzy control, based tracker was higher in the clear or sunny day reaching 25.28%; and while in the cloudy day it was observed that the efficiency obtained is lower 8.97%, in both cases with respect to the fixed position PV panel. Therefore, it is concluded that the energy efficiency of the PV panel with the proposed solar tracker is always higher than that of the fixed position PV panel.