Solar powered water pump with single axis tracking system for irrigation purpose

Abstract

Now a day the most convenient available energy is a solar energy used by the photo voltaic cell that converts heat energy into an electrical energy directly from the sun. Present research concerned with the solar tracking, conversion of Direct Current to Alternating Current and to run the agricultural motor equipped with the timer. Tracking is to align the solar panel always perpendicular to the solar beams to charge the battery effectively where the intensity of the light is higher and energy is in form of Direct Current to convert Alternating Current by inverter. Required energy from battery is to run the motor. To automate the stepper motor, which has silicon based solar panel mounted on its shaft, controlled by the microcontroller. Two sensors are connected to the micro controller one which senses the position of the sun and the second one for sensing whether it is day or night. The first sensor finds the location of the sun which is mounted on the solar panel, and the stepper motor is controlled accordingly such that the beams fall onto the solar panel always perpendicular. For this logic, used AT89C51 microcontroller and the embedded C-program coding is provided in the KEIL micro vision editor. Analyzed average amount of energy available from pump, efficiency achieved by the panel to work.