Hardware implementation of solar tracking system using a stepper motor

The people are switching from conventional energy sources to renewable energy sources. The use of solar photovoltaic is increasing day by day as there is an abundant amount of energy which is being received from sun on earth. The photovoltaic system when placed as a fixed structure at a particular angle is inefficient because this system is unable to extract maximum power from sun. In this paper, a single axis solar tracking system has been used. The control algorithm for solar tracker can move the panel in both the directions i.e. east to west and west to east in a step function. The stepper motor is switched on at regular intervals of half an hour owing to which there is reduction in consumption of power as compared to that of a continuously run motor in conventional solar tracking systems. The output power, obtained from the setup is higher than those reported in literature.