Investigating the Effectiveness of Solar Tracking for PV Facility in Chelyabinsk

Abstract

For the last decade energy production of PV facilities has greatly increased. Due to the problem of the low actual efficiency of PV panels, many researchers conduct experiments with the sun trackers at different locations to obtain the maximum and actual efficiency gain. The purpose of our study is to investigate the effectiveness of one-axis sun tracker for a PV panel located in Chelyabinsk. The four experimental sets are compared to obtain the efficiency gain during the period from May to September of 2016. The experimental sets comprise identical PV panels (Topray solar) and differ with the mount angle of inclination (90o, 0o, 55o, and 55o with the one-axis sun tracker). An average monthly and total solar irradiation is calculated for the collected data. The main result of the study shows that the usage of the one-axis solar tracking system can increase the efficiency of the PV panel up to 33% during a season compared to the fixed at the optimal angle PV panel. Further research is surely perspective in Chelyabinsk, in particularly, for investigating the maximum efficiency gain for a dual-axis sun tracker and designing a sun tracker with the low energy consumption.