Efficient Single Axis Sun Tracker Design for Photovoltaic System Applications

: Solar energy is rapidly gaining importance as a source of renewable energies. Solar tracker system enables be generated more solar energy by using photovoltaic solar cells. The degree of use the solar radiation can be maximized by use of tracker system which can increase the enough efficiency. It receives the largest amount of solar radiation incident when it is perpendicular to the solar panel. In this paper a one axis solar tracker is designed and implemented to track the sun in azimuth axis by using an AVR microcontroller. The implemented system consists mainly of the ATmega328 controller, DC motor, light sensors, relay and solar panel. The results show that the designed low cost sun tracker increases the output power gain by 18-25% as compared with the fixed panel located at a latitude angel (35.47°) of the Kirkuk city, Iraq. To increase the amount of incident efficiency of solar radiation conversion from the panels of the sun tracker systems has been changed by adding rear panel (back side) which is opposite to the in front panel and it was shows that the efficiency of the output power increasing about (65%) compared with fixed panel and when adding the reflector made of Aluminum foil as (a mirror) to the opposite panel (rear panel) the output power increased about (72%) compared to fixed system. The overall power gains on our tracker system increased and become more efficient by adding rear side panel and reflector.