Abstract
The demand for energy and the pressure for reducing environmental impacts is increasing in developing countries, mainly in agricultural areas. The generation of electricity from photovoltaic panels can be economically and environmentally advantageous as a source of renewable energy and the ability to reach remote consumers. The present study aimed to evaluate the performance of a photovoltaic system equipped with a sun-tracking device, comparing to a fixed panel. The test compared two panels of a photovoltaic cell system, one used a rotation module in two-axis, and the other a fixed one (control), for capturing solar energy throughout the day in a tropical region of Brazil. Solar energy data were obtained in the two photovoltaic panels with data continuously recorded six months, with a weather characteristic of high cloudiness and rainfall indexes. The commissioning of the tested photovoltaic panels was done on bright days. Power results indicated that the two-axis tracker system was useful during the test, presenting an increase of 26% when compared to the fixed panel. It was found that when the cloudiness and the rain index are very high, the sun tracking system might not be as efficient as foreseen. Rainfall and cloudiness index are essential factors for determining the feasibility of using a tracker device in tropical regions.
Highlights
The demand for energy is increasing in developing countries, mainly in agricultural areas
Solar power generation might be an adequate solution for the lack of energy in remote areas; solar energy is not steady throughout the day, and the performance of solar panels is highly prejudiced by a large number of environmental factors such as sunshine intensity, cloudiness and wind speed (Kannan & Vakeesan, 2016)
Since solar power technology is highly dependent on regional environmental characteristics (Kannan & Vakeesan, 2016), the extra energy expenditure in the tracking device might be taken into consideration when dimensioning the solar energy application
Summary
The demand for energy is increasing in developing countries, mainly in agricultural areas. The generation of electricity from photovoltaic panels can be economically and environmentally advantageous as a source of renewable and sustainable energy (Branker et al, 2011; Parida et al, 2011; Sampaio & Aguirre González, 2017). Solar energy is one of the clean, renewable energy with great potential for use in developing areas (Panwar et al, 2011; Singh et al, 2018). Brazil is one of the top countries in the world capable of producing solar energy, with a high potential for the use of this energy.
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