Sources of Energy

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We have taken efforts in this project. However, it would not have been possible without the kind of support and help of many individuals and organizations. we would like to extend my sincere thanks to all of them.

We are highly indebted to Prof : J. B. SARVAIYA for their guidance and constant supervision as well as for providing necessary information regarding the project & also for their support in completing the project. we would like to express my special gratitude and thanks to faculties for giving me such attention and time.

Our thanks and appreciations also go to our colleague in developing the project and people who have willingly helped me out with their abilities.

We sincerely appreciate the inspiration, support and guidance of all those people who have been instrumental in making this project a success. We would also like to thank all the faculty members of Electrical department for their critical advice and guidance without which this project would not have been possible.

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We would like to express my gratitude towards Head of Department, Dr. K. P. Badgujar for their kind co-operation and encouragement which help me in this project.

Last but not the least we place a deep sense of gratitude to our family members and our friends who have been constant source of inspiration during the preparation of this project work.

Abstract

Today energy demands are increasing sharply,therefore the need To conserve energy and utilize available energy efficiently is very Important. There are many forms of renewable energy available, With the increasing demand there is a need to exploit renewable Sources of energy.

Solar is one of them and it is time dependent And intermittent source of energy. Our project aim is to install Automatic solar panel cleaning system. Due to dust on the solar panel the Efficiency of solar panel get decreases thus by implementing this We will able to increase the efficiency of the solar panel. Thus the output of the solar panel increases.

Keywords - solar panel, dc motor , motor driver, Arduino Uno, Microcontroller, water pump

OBJECTIVE

Features

• To increase the efficiency of the plate.
• To increase life of the plate.
• To reduce cleaning cost of the cleaning process.
• To reduce the labour cost.
• To reduce the time of the cleaning.

Working:

The cleaning unit moves on the central part of the panel in a forward motion. The brush mounted on the fixture and tool unit reciprocates in the forward direction. The cleaning unit along with the brush rotate along the central panel spraying the water droplets towards the other end of the panel. It forces the dust to move in the direction of the motion of the cleaning unit and finally flows it away at the edge of the panel. Once the cleaning unit reaches the other end, the water spraying stops and it again returns back.

DC MOTOR:

A DC Motor is a class of electrical machine that convert direct current electrical power into mechanical power. The most common type relay on the forces produced by the magnetic field. DC motors speed can be controlled over a wide range by using a variable supply voltage or by changing the strength of current in the field winding.

Specification of DC motor:

• Voltage - 12 V
• Speed - 100 rpm
• Current - 0.5- 1 A
• Power - 6W
• High torque

WATER PUMP DC 12V

This is a small size submersible pump motor which can be operated by 12 V power supply. It can pump up to 120 liter per hour with very low current consumption of 220mA.

Specifications:

• Operating Voltage - 12V
• Operating Current - 3A
• Flow Rate - 4 L/M
• Maximum lift - 40 ~ 110mm
• Material - Engineering Plastic

Brush

For the cleaning purpose we use two types of brush. One is static brush and other is rotating brush. The static brush is made up of alfa twing wiper. Which does not rotate. The rotating brush which is made up of nylon material. Which is placed on the shaft of the motor and rotate on it.

Sprinkles

It is used for cleaning purpose of the panel. As the panel can not be purely cleaned only by brush. Operating pressure is 150 to 250 kpa. It is placed on the top of the solar panel and connected to the pipes which provide water for cleaning purpose.

ELECTRICAL COMPONENTS

LDR SENSOR

A ldr sensor is a light controlled variable resistor. The resistance of a photoresistor decreases with increasing incident light intesity in other word in exhibits photoconductivity. A photo resistor can be applied in light sensitive detector circuits and light activated and dark activated switching circuits.

ARDUINO

Arduino is an open source electronics platform based on easy to use hardware and software. Arduino boards are able to read inputs light on a sensor, a finger on a button , or a twitter message and turn into an output. Activating a motor turning on an LED, publishing something online. You can tell your board what to do by sending a set of instruction to the microcontroller on the board . to do so we use arduino programming language and arduino software based on processing.

Working system:

The cleaning unit moves on the panel in forward direction. A cleaning object is mounted on the shaft which rotate at a particular speed. The water is injected at the top of the panel from sprinkles. The cleaning unit moves as per the command and after reaching at other end it will come to its initial position.

The cleaning system moves on the solar panel so there is a command for the direction up to distance.So this is done with the help of the arduino. This process is repeated after some time duration.So there is no need of any worker during the time of cleaning.

We placed one glass sheet near to the solar panel so whatever the dust particle deposited on the solar panel are also on the glass sheet in same quantity. LDR sensor is placed under this glass sheet and laser is above the glass sheet. So when dust particle deposited on the glass sheet it will result in low intensity of laser light and sense by LDR. It will command to the arduino to start cleaning system.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

ADVANTAGES:

• Increases efficiency of solar plate.
• Sometime dust or other particles remains long time on a solar panel, so it damages the aluminium strip of solar plate. So we avoid these damages by this system.
• Increases in the output of the solar panel.
• Eliminate build-up of dirt and potential damage to solar panels.
• Automatic self-cleaning mechanism that can be attached to solar panels and operated without human operation.

DISADVANTAGES:

• The brushes used should be change after specific time duration.

CONCLUSION

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 light weight material, so the power consumed is low. Also frequent periodic cleaning ensures that the solar panel works with a good transmittance consistently at all times.

FUTURE SCOPE OF PROJECT

1. In future it is possible to use one type of material that clean the solar panel without water.
2. In summer the temperature of the solar panel is very high. For good efficiency the temperature of solar panel should be 25 ?C to 35?C. so we need to place some cooling system.