SOLAR POWER GENERATION WITH AUTOMATED SUN TRACKER (SYNOPSIS)

GROUP MENTOR: Mr. L.P. SINGH

SUBMITTED BY: Vaibhav Arya(0751484908) Sumit Gupta(0771484908) Ashina Gupta(0931484908) Arihant Chharia(0941484908)

SOLAR PANEL CHARGING STATION

INTRODUCTION
This project focuses on optimizing the abundant energy available from the Sun in the form of SOLAR ENERGY. The earth receives energy from the Sun in the form of electromagnetic radiations. Solar energy is cheap and free from pollution. India receives solar energy equivalent to more than 5000 trillion kwh per year, which is far more than its total annual consumption. Though the energy density is low and the availability is not continuous, it has now become possible to harness this abundantly available energy very reliably for many purposes by converting to heat or through direct generation of electricity. Thus this project will highlight the optimum use of solar energy using solar panels to generate electricity which can be used to charge electronic gadgets like mobile phones. The electricity source can also be used to supply LEDs, run dc motor, etc.

CONCEPT
A solar cell (also called photovoltaic cell or photoelectric cell) is a solid state electrical device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect.Assemblies of cells used to make solar modules which are used to capture energy from sunlight, are known as solar panels.

BLOCK DIAGRAM

We have made above circuit for the execution of our project. The project circuit comprises of the following components: 1) Solar Panel - It converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect. The solar panel that we have used in our project gives an output of 5 volts.

2) Rechargeable battery - It is used for continuous power supply. To avoid blinking out of the circuit in case a bird or cloud passes overhead. A Capacitor can also be used for the same purpose but a capacitor generally does not provide sufficient energy storage to power a solar circuit for extended periods of time in the dark. A rechargeable battery can of course provide that function, and also provides a fairly consistent output voltage that a capacitor cannot. The battery that we have used in our project is NiMH battery.

3) Reverse Blocking Diode - This one-way valve allows current to flow from the solar panel to the battery, but does not allow current to flow backwards out of the battery through the solar panel. That's actually an important concern because small solar panels like these can leak up to 50 mA in the reverse direction in the dark.

4) Microcontroller - We use the voltage output from the solar panel take it to an analog input of the microcontroller. The microcontroller is potentially a very low current, efficient device that lets you save power by not charging the mobile phone all the time. We can control flow of power even during sunny conditions for low average power consumption and to avoid overcharging of batteries. The microcontroller that we have used in our project is an AVR microcontroller. This microcontroller executes most of the instructions in single execution cycle. AVRs are about 4 times faster than PICs and 8051, they consume less power and can be operated in different power saving modes. Also they have more memory space than PICs and 8051. AVR is an 8-bit microcontroller belonging to the family of Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC). In RISC architecture the instruction set of the computer are not only fewer in number but also simpler and faster in operation. By 8-bit port we mean that the microcontroller is capable of transmitting and receiving 8-bit data. The input/output registers available are of 8-bits. The AVR family controllers have register based architecture which means that both the operands for an operation are stored in a register and the result of the operation is also stored in a register.

The above shown board has been considered for our project. It is termed as Janta Board(or JB), it has one microcontroller on board and other minimum required components like reset switch, crystal, power on LED etc. All port pins are open for connections. Also connection friendly lines for Vcc & GND are available. This board works at 3.3V or 5V DC.

5) Charging cable - A charging cable of the respective mobile phone would be used to supply DC from the charging station straight to the phone battery.

6) Opto Coupler- The LED is a light emitting device and photo-transistor is a light sensitive device. The conduction current of phototransistor can be controlled via the conduction current of the LED, even though the two devices are physically separated. Such a package is known as an opto coupler, sine the input (LED) and the output (phototransistor) devices are optically coupled. The most important point to note about the opto coupler device is that a circuit connected to its input can be electrically fully isolated from the output circuit and that a potential difference of

hundreds (or) thousands of volts can safely exist between these two circuits without adversely influencing the opto coupler action. This isolating characteristic is the main attraction of this type of opto coupler device, which is generally known as an isolating opto coupler.

The above concept gives an insight of the working of the solar panel charging station.

CONCLUSION

This project which was enhanced with the scope of conserving the conventional fuels is successfully completed. The main objective, to increase the usage of renewable energy source for power generation is perfectly implemented. Taking into consideration the future energy scenario in the world, solar energy would be a major energy source.