Solar Tracking Inverter System Using MPPT

Abstract

Electric power has become a necessity to human beings with the advancement of technology occurring every day. Over the past century, the major energy sources for generating electricity have been fossil fuels, hydroelectricity, and nuclear energy. Despite the increase in the use of renewable sources to generate electricity over the past few decades, non-renewable sources have remained dominant worldwide. Since fossil fuels are non-renewable, the reduction in the consumption of them to produce electricity has been really challenging. Solar energy is the most abundantly available form of renewable energy source for the generation of electricity. But, the problem with solar energy is its low efficiency when it is used to generate electricity. Therefore, this paper is mainly concerned for increasing the efficiency of power generated by using solar energy. The solar panel is made to rotate as well as turn in such a way that maximum light is incident on the solar panel, and hence, maximum energy is absorbed by it. Motors that can move the solar panel in X and Y axes are used. As a result of this, the overall efficiency of power generation using solar energy is increased by around 30%. This is essential to increase the use of renewable sources. To further increase the efficiency, the output of the solar panels is given as input to a circuit known as MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) circuit. The energy is then stored in an inverter for future use.