A low-cost photovoltaic (PV) array monitoring system

Author

Rivai, Ahmad ; Rahim, N.A.

Author_Institution

UM Power Energy Dedicated Adv. Centre (UMPEDAC), Univ. of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

fYear

2013

Firstpage

169

Lastpage

174

Abstract

The hardware and software design of a low-cost photovoltaic (PV) monitoring system are presented. The system was designed on ATmega8535 microcontroller and applied for PV array characteristics. The PV array characteristics monitored are solar irradiance, temperature, short-circuit current, open-circuit voltage, maximum power, voltage and current at maximum power, fill factor and also efficiency of PV array. The system uses a Pyranometer LI-200 for solar irradiance sensor, an LM35 for temperature sensor, a simple voltage divider for the voltage sensor, and a shunt resistor for the current sensor. The software was developed using Visual Basic (VB).

Keywords

Visual BASIC; atmospheric measuring apparatus; computerised monitoring; electric sensing devices; microcontrollers; power engineering computing; short-circuit currents; solar cell arrays; temperature sensors; voltage dividers; ATmega8535 microcontroller; PV array characteristics; PV monitoring system; Pyranometer LI-200; Pyranometer LM35; VB; Visual Basic; current sensor; fill factor; low-cost photovoltaic array monitoring system; open-circuit voltage; short-circuit current; shunt resistor; solar irradiance sensor; temperature sensor; voltage divider; voltage sensor; Arrays; Computers; Microcontrollers; Monitoring; Ports (Computers); Temperature measurement; Temperature sensors; Index Low; Microcontroller; Monitoring system; Photovoltaic; cost;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Clean Energy and Technology (CEAT), 2013 IEEE Conference on

Conference_Location

Lankgkawi

Print_ISBN

978-1-4799-3237-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CEAT.2013.6775620

Filename

6775620