IoT Based Automatic Control of Sun Tracking Solar Panel for High Power Generation

The conversion of sun light into electric energy through solar panels is significant compared to other renewable sources. The energy extracted from the solar panel depends on solar light incident on the solar panel, but the con-stant variation in the sun’s position decreases the power generation efficiency. In order to extract maximal energy, the solar panel should face the sunlight at normal angle throughout the day. Solar tracker tilts the panel towards the sun light direction. The automatic sun tracking solar panel will harness a significant amount of energy from available sun light. Single axis type of solar tracker is used which has one degree of freedom of rotation. Closed loop tracking ap-proach is used with LDR’s, an ATmega2560 microcontroller and a DC motor forming the principal components of the circuit model. Based on the signals generated from LDR’s, microcontroller provides signals to the motor for tilting the solar panel towards the direction of maximum incident sun rays, which will increase the power generation efficiency. The efficiency of the proposed system is 71%. The information regarding status of solar tracking system is shared through IoT.