Solar Array Plants Cleaning Bot Using Renewable Internet of Things.
Meghana #
Introduction
With growing costs of electricity and concern for the
environmental impact of fossil fuels, implementation of eco-
friendly energy sources like solar power are rising. The main
method for harnessing solar power is with arrays made up of
photovoltaic (PV) panels.
Accumulation of dust and debris on even one panel in an
array reduces their efficiency in energy generation
considerably and emphasizes the need to keep the panel’s
Surface as clean as possible.
Current labour-based cleaning methods for photovoltaic
Arrays are costly, time consuming and lack monitoring
capabilities.
In this Project a novel design is to be developed which uses
PLC based automatic cleaning of solar panels. A tool is
designed based on the array size, and water
pumping/sprinkling mechanism is designed based on the
amount/nature of dust accumulated.
This project is a smart panel cleaning system for PV that
provides a cost-effective and scalable solution for the
removal of soil and dirt. It will automatically and remotely
remove the dirt at a fraction of the cost of manual cleaning.
In terms of daily energy generation, the presented
automatic-cleaning scheme provides about 30% more
energy output when compared to the dust accumulated PV
module.
There is more than enough solar radiation available around
the world to satisfy the demand for solar power systems. The
proportion of the sun’s rays that reaches the earth’s surface
is enough to provide for global energy consumption 10,000
times over. On average, each square metre of land is
exposed to enough sunlight to produce 1,700 kWh of power
every year.
Solar panel refers to a panel designed to absorb the sun's
rays as a source of energy for generating electricity or
heating.
A photoc (PV) module is a packaged, connect assembly of
typically 6×10 solar cells. Solar Photovoltaic panels
constitute the solar array of a photovoltaic system that
generates and supplies solar electricity in commercial and
residential applications. Each module is rated by
its DC output power under standard test conditions, and
typically ranges from 100 to 365 watts. The efficiency of a
module determines the area of a module given the same
rated output – an 8% efficient 230 watt module will have
twice the area of a 16% efficient 230 watt module.
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M ,V.Thirunavukkarasu
REVA University
School of computer science and application
Methods
How does it works?
Once the circuit is assembled, it is ready to deploy along with
the solar panel. While the solar panel keeps generating
electricity, the attached IOT device developed in this project
monitors its various parameters. The device is powered from
the mains supply that is managing the other performance
enhance equipments as well. Once the IOT device is powered,
some initial messages are flashed on its LCD display indicating
the intent of the application. The power output of the panel,
temperature and the incident light intensity are measured by the
Voltage Output pin of the solar panel, LM-35 temperature
sensor and the LDR sensor respectively. The Voltage Output pin
of the solar panel, LM-35 temperature sensor and the LDR
sensor are connected to the antilog input pins A1, A0 and A2 of
the Particle Photon.
The respective parameters are measured by sensing the
analog voltage at the respective pins. The analog voltage
sensed at the respective pins is converted to digital values
using in-built ADC channels. The Particle Photon has 12-bit
ADC channels. So the digitized values can range from 0 to 4095
. Here, it is assumed that the resistive network interfacing
LDR sensor with the controller pin is calibrated to indicate light
intensity by direct proportionality.
FUTURE SCOPE
Robots can be advanced to be well dressed, like a cleans
any PV panel ouside, it will be keep safe the facts
provided about size and its location.
Robot weight can be increasing make it stable,
the robot shape can be change better than cleaning
mechanisum.
Results
The data obtained for Solar Radiation versus Time
characteristics, Panelefficiency versus Time analysis, voltage
and current versus Time with andwithout dust curve for the
solar panel under investigation shown in the Fig3.3, 3.4, 3.5,
and 3.6 respectively. In the summer, the sun appears
brighter in the sky, which increases the duration of sunlight
seen in a day than it appears in the winter. The sun is the
highest in sky on the summer solstice. The minimum and
maximum temperature was found to be 22.6 ºC to 41.8ºC.
The maximum and minimum solar radiation intensity was
found tovary between 985 and 210 W/m2. The performance
of a solar panel is necessary to describe the electrical
parameters of the cell like Voc, Isc, fill factor, efficiency (η)
estimate. The effect of the deposition of dust on the solar
panel is considerable due to the fact that power is a complex
phenomenon that is influenced by different environmental
and weather conditions. From the study so for conducted
that by cleaning the solar PVs regularly can maximize the
amount of radiations received and increases output power
up to the maximum limit.
A brief schematic representation of the factors that
determines the settling of dust on the PV panels is shown in
setup of experiment. A detailed analysis of the influence of
dust on the PV modules performance is proposed in this
project. During the study of the performance of solar panel
with and without dust, then the following factors have been
considered:
Voltage versus days with and without dust
Current versus Time with and without dust
Panel efficiency versus Time analysis with and without
dust
Conclusions
The main conclusions can be summarized as: The
losses of the output power of the fixed solar panel at a tilt
angle(35) is about 25% of the rated yield and can be higher
depending on the dust form. The dirt and bird drop make a
hotspot in the panel, and it can make temporary fail in the
panel. Dry cleaning can' not remove all the dirt on the
surface of the solar panel, but it is able to remove the outer
layers of the dust. Cleaning solar panel with water increases
the cleaning efficiency by removing majority of the dirt
deposited on the panel. No external powers are required as
the self- cleaning system takes its power from the battery of
the solar panel. This device is made up of lightweight
material, so the power consumed is low . Comparing the
costs of cleaning by Manual operation and Automatic
operation the cost for automatic cleaning is proved to be
more economic and significantly less cumbersome
particularly in systems having large number of solar panels.
Also frequent periodic cleaning ensures that the solar panel
works with a good transmittance consistently at all times.
Bibliography
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