Development of a Smart Solar Tracking (SST) system as a green renewable energy solution

Abstract

Renewable energy is a type of energy generated from renewable resources that are naturally generated such as sunlight, waves, rain, wind and geothermal heat. Renewable energy provides energy in different categories such as electricity generation, air and water heating/cooling and transportation. Solar PV cells are the most common method for transforming the sun light to electrical power. But using a standstill PV cells is not very efficient due to sun movement as the PV cells must be perpendicularly aligned to the sun to get its maximum efficiency. Tracking the sun by a tracking system will increase the harvested energy and achieve the maximum power generated from the solar cells. In this work, we develop a solar tracking system that enables photovoltaic cells to continuously track the sun and study the effect of light incident angle on the photovoltaic cell’s efficiency. In this study, the use of PV cells with tracking capabilities is 21% more efficient as compared to conventional standstill PV cells.