Abstract

ARREOLA GOMEZ, Rubisel et al. Design, construction and evaluation of a solar tracking system for a photovoltaic panel. Rev. Mex. Cienc. Agríc [online]. 2015, vol.6, n.8, pp.1715-1727. ISSN 2007-0934.

Among the renewable energy sources, solar energy is the most important, because of its abundance, sustainability and is completely free of charge. Besides, using a solar collector tracking the total energy received on a clear day can be about 30-45% higher than for the same solar collector static. We designed and built a system of autonomous and able to follow the movement of the sun, which was coupled to a photovoltaic panel to improve efficiency in energy capture tracking. Device performance was evaluated in terms of energy, three evaluation tests programming it to be oriented to the sun every 60, 30 and 5 min, and the results were compared with the energy efficiency of a fixed photovoltaic panel. The software was developed for the entire territory of Mexico and throughout the year. The best energy performance is obtained when the solar tracker is oriented to the sun every 60 min, the energy generated was 27.98% compared to the fixed panel, with an energy expenditure for operation of 1.3% of final energy gain. Comparing energy production system with the global solar radiation (ISR), usuing 13.27% of the available energy, and 2.93% on the fixed panel.

Keywords : photovoltaics; solar energy; solar tracker; microcontroller; two-axis tracking.

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