Smart-routable solar energy collection system

In the last century, people have created a more comfortable life environment for the future with the technologies they have. In parallel to the ever-increasing life standards, the pace of our consumption and our habits have increased. As the works made for the developments and the changes for a comfortable life pose threats to humanity, it is compulsory to find permanent solutions to these threats. The first of these threats are environmental pollution along with climate change which stem from fossil fuels. In the existing system, carbon-based fuels such as natural gas and petroleum are used in order to produce energy which is among the basic needs during the history of humanity. To reach fossil fuels, which are decreasing in amount day by day, is becoming expensive and this is creating a negative situation for the underdeveloped countries. In addition, climate change is also emerging due to diffusion of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere intensively. Greenhouse gases which emerge as a result of increased use of fossil fuels are harmful to the humanity. The tendency towards renewable energy sources has increased in recent years in order to solve these problem. Turkey receives more sunlight in terms of the length of time and the area of the country due to its mathematical position in the world. For this reason, solar energy is the most ideal alternative energy source in order to produce domestic energy. In this direction, the use of solar energy for water heating systems in the southern region of Turkey is widely available. Another way to benefit from solar energy is to produce electrical energy with Photovoltaic (PV) modules which have semiconductor technology. However, the methods of producing electricity from the sun have both high initial costs and long depreciation periods. In this sense, Research and Development(R&D) studies needs to be conducted in order to increase the efficiency of the PV modules. In order to increase the efficiency obtained from the solar panels, either the radiation intensity on the PV module or the efficiency of cell must be increased. The increase of the efficiency of cell can be made to a certain level because the modules in question contain semiconducting material. In this study, it was considered to increase the intensity of the sunlight on the PV module through using the solar tracking system. Namely; a mechanical system is designed to move to the directions of east-west and north-south. A 10 W solar panel is placed on this system and four Light Dependet Resistance(LDR) are placed on each side. The information received from the LDRs goes to the analog inputs of the PIC18F452 microcontroller. The software inside the microcontroller moves the two DC motors in the system where the PV module is assembled and the moving platform is positioned according to the sun thanks to the information received from the LDRs. Therefore, the sunlight falls on the panels at right angles throughout the day. In addition, thanks to this application system, two days were recorded; the fixed system data was recorded on the first day and the moving system data was recorded on the second day; and the energy was compared. Besides, the micro-controller in the system keeps the Solar tracking system (STS) stable when it considers the energy to be consumed is much for the rotation process through comparing the energy consumed during the rotation of the DC motors and the energy produced from the PV module. In this system there is a battery and battery charger kit, and the system does not produce when the battery is full. There are auto-manual buttons on the system so it can be controlled manually if required. In addition, the information received from the microcontroller is displayed on the LCD screen. Keywords: Renewable energy, PV module, solar tracking system, PIC18F452, LDR