Study and Realization of A Monoaxial Solar Tracker Over an Equatorial Mount

Abstract

A solar tracker is a mechanism that helps the photovoltaic panel to increase its power while keeping the latter oriented towards the sun. This paper aims to introduce an adjustment that makes our solar tracker efficient, by using a single tracking axis instead of two, in order to minimize the cost of production and the power dissipated, without reducing the efficiency of our photovoltaic panel. We chose a tracking mechanism used for telescopes, called equatorial mount since it allows us to follow perfectly the objects of the sky (the sun, the stars and the planets) with a single axis (this is the tracking axis). We began with a theoretical comparison, and simulation of the solar irradiation amount absorbed by our proposed system, and a perfect tracking system in order to derive the lost amount. The obtained results reveal that the decrease is negligible esteemed to be about 5%. After completing the realization project, we tested it by measuring the production and consumption of our tracker for a period of 24 hours. The results show that our solar tracker has a power gain of 49% compared to the fixed system, with minimal energy consumption.