The Implementation and Analysis of Dual Axis Sun Tracker System to Increase Energy Gain of Solar Photovoltaic

Abstract

Solar Photovoltaic (SPV) generation system is one of the renewable energy sources that is currently experiencing increased penetration on the grid. Generally, SPV panels are installed at a certain tilted angle. This type of installation has its own drawback such as when the sun’s position is behind the SPV panel, the energy produced decreases. To overcome this condition, the SPV panel with the dual axis sun tracker system is designed and implemented. The designed dual axis sun tracker of this research has several main components, such as 4 LDR sensors for detecting the position of the sun and the Arduino microcontroller used to read the measurement from the LDR sensors, processing these measurement data and instructing the actuator to drive the SPV panels at a perpendicular incident angle. The actuator is made from 2 servo motors for each vertical and horizontal axis respectively. It can be seen from the results that the use of dual axis sun tracker is capable to increase the “energy gain” up to 60 %. It is also worth noting that the use of this dual axis sun tracker has a big potential to apply in the tropical region such as Pekanbaru City, Indonesia.