DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF SOLAR TRACKING CONTROL SYSTEM

Abstract

The increasing demand for energy, the continuous reduction in existing sources of fossil fuels and the growing concern regarding environment pollution, have pushed mankind to explore new technologies for the production of electrical energy using clean, renewable sources, such as solar energy, wind energy, etc. Renewable energy is considered safe and sustainable way to get clean energy and reduce dependence on traditional energy sources. Solar energy is gaining increasing importance; especially in Egypt because of the vast areas and large periods of brightness, making it contributes a large share of the energies used. Convert solar energy into electrical energy using solar cells is still expensive and ineffective. It is applied to different mechanisms for increasing the efficiency of solar cells to reduce costs. Solar tracking system is the most appropriate technology to enhance the efficiency of solar cells by tracking the sun. Thus, this paper deals with controlling the solar panel at two axes by using four light dependent resistor (LDRs) as sensors, stepper and direct current (DC) motors as actuators (M1, M2) and microcontroller PIC16F877A as a controller unit. The prototype of solar tracking system has a mechanism for precise control to keep tracking of sun automatically and get the largest possible energy on the solar cell. Results have proven that, the model has high accuracy in tracking the movement of the sun throughout the day. INTRUDUCTION nergy crisis is the most important issue in today's world and especially in Egypt, where the increase in population on the one hand and the lack of fuel and gas with increased consumption as a result of increased growth in all areas (Md. Tanvir Arafat K. et al., 2010).