Development of Solar Tracking System for Domestic Application

The highly volatile prices fossil fuel currently creates an opportunity for the
development of alternative approaches in electricity generation. Comprehensive and
concerted efforts are focused at developing SEGS (Solar Electricity Generation
System). One of the challenges faced by SEGS is the apparent trajectory of the sun.
Often, SEGS designers use standard testing condition, whereby the level of solar
insolation is taken to be a constant value of 1 OOOW/m2 The fact remains that the only
constant value of solar insolation occurs just outside the earth atmosphere, where the
value of 1353W/m2 is declared as solar constant. This value drops significantly as the
solar radiation passes through the atmosphere, where the typical range is between 150
W/m2 and 1000W/m2
• The aim of this project is to address the apparent trajectory of
the sun. A novel design of the sun tracker has been tested and is able to do two-axis
tracking for photovoltaic based SEGS.