Comparing Solar Panel Performances under Certain Environment

Circumstances by using Sensor Circuits

Arman Sani

, Eddy Warman

, A. P. S. Depari

, F. Simanjuntak

, S. Suherman

Electrical Engineering Dept., Universitas Sumatera Utara, Medan, Indonesia

Keywords: Solar Panels, Monocrystalline, Polycrystalline, Sensor Circuits, Solar Measurement Device, Environment

Parameters.

Abstract: Solar panel produces electric current depending upon the sunlight intensity. Beside that, temperature, air

moisture and other environment parameters influence the energy conversion process. Commercial solar

panels are widely available in market. The price depends on solar sell capasity as well as material which

determine the electric generation performance. This paper compares monocrystaline and polycrystaline

solar panels by using sensor circuits. The impact of environmental parameters to solar panel is also

assessed. The results show that monocrystaline outperforms polycrystaline. The voltage, current and power

outputs of monocrystaline are 2.8%, 7.73% and 6.41 % higher than polycrystaline. The monocrystaline solar

panel is also more stable to environmental changes. It is hown the efficiency stability.

1 INTRODUCTION

Solar panel consists of solar cell arrangements in

series and parallel to produce certain voltage and

current level. The material within solar cells

produces electrical currenst that is captured by the

electrode drawn smoothly on solar cell surface. This

electrodes are interconnected from one cell to other

cell forming higher electric current. The modul of

cell arangements forms solar panel. Solar panel are

easily found on market with specified capasity.

Users often rely on this specification when purchase

them.

In some cases, the solar panel may not working

as expected. One of the influencial factors is the

environment circumstance [1-3]. Environmental

conditions are constantly changing over time. These

variations change the environment parameters such

as temperature, wind speed, humidity and solar

radiation. Those parameters may influence the solar

panel output. The radiation from the sun also

fluctuate [4,5]. This paper compares solar panel

performance by integrating the environment

inconsistencies. All these environment

inconsistences are taken into account by detecting

the parameter values using sensors and measuring

the output of solar panels at the same time, then

comparing the solar panel performances. The

sensors are assembled and controlled by an arduino

module. The circuit has been presented in author

previous paper (Sani, 2018). The highlighted version

is presented in next session.

Besides solar panel output in term of voltage,

current and power comparisons; measurement errors

are also presented in this paper, as well as the

environment parameters impacts to both panels.

2 RESEARCH METHOD

2.1 Sensor Circuits

Figure 1 shows the sensor circuits (Sani, 2018).

Voltage and current generated by solar panel are

measured using DC voltage sensor and ACS712

current sensor. DS18B20 is used to measure the

temperature. Humidity sensor is performed by

DHT11, a negative temperature coefficient

thermistor. Piranometer is employed to measure

solar radiation in watt per meter unit and the

192

Sani, A., Warman, E., Depari, A., Simanjuntak, F. and Suherman, S.

Comparing Solar Panel Performances under Certain Environment Circumstances by using Sensor Circuits.

DOI: 10.5220/0010075301920195

In Proceedings of the International Conference of Science, Technology, Engineering, Environmental and Ramiﬁcation Researches (ICOSTEERR 2018) - Research in Industry 4.0, pages

192-195

ISBN: 978-989-758-449-7

anemometer is for measuring wind speed. All

sensors are connected to the arduino.

Figure 1. Solar measurement device

2.2 Experiement Scenario

The In order to measure voltage and current

generated in each panel, a 100 W 24 V

monocrystalline and 100 W24 V pollycrystaline

solar panels were assessed. The two solar panels are

placed closedly so both receives the same light

intensity as well as receives the same environmental

circumstances. The panel placement and the circuit

arrangement are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Experiment set up

The solar radiation, temperature, humidity and

wind speed are measured at the same time for

several days. Data is recorded. In order to validate

the measurement result samples of direct

measurements using voltmeter and ammeter are also

presented.

As the output voltage and current are recorded as

well as sensor readings, outputs of solar panels are

comparable. Further, impact sensor values to panel

output is also available.

3 MEASUREMENT RESULT

3.1 Sensor Data

Table 1 shows the sensor circuits (Sani, 2018).

Voltage and current generated by solar panel are

measured as daily average. The input power is

obtained from the radiation sensor, while output

power is obtained from the generated voltage and

sensor multiplied by the solar panel factor. The

efficiency is determined by the percentage of output

to input power.

Table 1. The average output power records

The output voltage, current and output power

comparisons for monocrystaline and polycrystaline

solar panel are shown in Figure 3. In average,

monocrystaline solar panel produces higher voltage,

current and power outputs than polycrystaline.

Monocrystaline generates 2.8%, 7.73% and 6.41 %

higher voltage, current and power. However,

polycrystaline exerts a more stable voltage.

(a)Output voltage

Comparing Solar Panel Performances under Certain Environment Circumstances by using Sensor Circuits

193

(a)Output current

(c)Output power

Figure 3. Output comparisons

3.2 Impact Environment Parameters to

Solar Panel Output

Impact environment parameters to solar panel output

can be seen in Figure 4. For monocrystaline and

polycrystaline solar panels, humidity and wind speed

tend to reduce efficiency. While temperature which

reflects the additional sunlight intensity tends to

increase efficiency.

(a) Humidity

(b) Wind speed

Figure 4. Impact of environment parameters to solar

panel efficiency

4 CONCLUSIONS

This paper has compared the polycrystaline and

monocrystaline solar panels using sensor circuit. The

measurement shows that monocrystaline produces

2.8%, 7.73% and 6.41 % higher voltage, current and

powerthan polycrystaline solar panel. The

polycrystaline is also more stable in term of

efficiency to environmental changes.

ICOSTEERR 2018 - International Conference of Science, Technology, Engineering, Environmental and Ramiﬁcation Researches

194

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was funded by Universitas Sumatera

Utara in accordance with Research Contract by

TALENTA of Universitas Sumatera Utara Fiscal

Year of 2018 number: 2590/UN5.1.R/PPM/2018

dated March 16, 2018.

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