PERFORMANCE MONITORING AND TRACKING PROTOTYPE FOR SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC (PV) INTEGRATED RENEWABLE ENERGY SYSTEM (PEMANTAU)

The purpose of this project is to develop a monitoring and tracking system for renewable energy
generation system. The system is called as PEMANTAU, which stands for Performance
Monitoring and Tracking Prototype for Integrated Renewable Energy System, consisting of tools
for measurements, analysis, and controls of the renewable electricity generating system.
PEMANTAU is an important tool for monitoring the performance of solar electricity generating
system, for optimum operation. The idea of PEMANTAU is to provide capability to capture
important data for analysis which can be used for optimizing the renewable electricity generating
system. It is important now to realize that optimization and improvements to the renewable
energy system efficiency will bring the change to the nation where, energy consumption today is
too dependent on the fossil type of energy. This project is also to support the strategic plan
framework of the 10th Malaysia Plan that emphasizes on the importance of using renewable
energy to meet Malaysia’s growing energy demand and to reduce the nation's reliance and
utilization of fossil fuel for power generation. The earlier phase of PEMANTAU will support a
solar-based electricity generating system. This will serve as an early prototype to build the
platform for the renewable electricity system. Solar electricity is proved to be an ideal source of
potential future electricity. Thus a quick method using simulation is needed to model the impact
of solar energy where it can be used to help distribution planners to perform the necessary
research and improvements. This report will demonstrate and document all the functionalities
and explain methods of the real time monitoring system that models resulting from output to the
end user. The GUI-based is designed to make the representation of data more user-friendly. It
acquires the measured data which have been transmitted wirelessly. Overall, the objectives of
this project have been fully achieved, whereby the PEMANTAU system has been successfully
designed and tested. PEMANTAU can be further improved by extending it for other renewable
energy based systems.