The monitoring of monthly, seasonal and yearly optimum tilt angles by Raspberry Pi card for Bilecik city, Turkey

Abstract

Solar energy is extracted from photovoltaic (PV) panels by semiconductor materials used in the system. However, the PV panel efficiency is low. Moreover, inaccurate determination of optimum fixed tilt angle of the panels, some environmental factors such as dirt and dust and solar radiation level and temperature variations depending on the seasonal changes decrease the panel efficiency. In the study, PV panels were placed at 100, 200, 30, 40, 50 and 60 tilt angles and the monthly, seasonally and yearly optimum tilt angles for Bilecik city were determined. Therefore, it was determined at which tilt angle the maximum power is extracted from PV panels. The record and the storage of the voltage, current and the power data obtained from PV panels is provided by Raspberry Pi card. Moreover, the obtained data is open to access on the intemet by a web server set up on Raspberry Pi. Therefore, the data can be watched live in any computer with an intemet access. Annual measurements were performed by the designed system and the data was recorded with the date and time data. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.