EE/PH/MM301: Energy Supplies

The University of the South Pacific

School of Engineering and Physics
EE/PH/MM301: Energy Supplies

Experiment 13:Solar Water Pumping

Lab Session Time: Wednesday (2pm 5pm)

Student Name:

Ashwal Kumar (s11098607)

Kishan Prasad (s11119618)
Ryan Bale (s11078457)
Shivneel Singh(s11120598)

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this lab is to:

Measure the efficiency of a solar water pumping system

Investigate the operating characteristics of the solar water pumping system under various conditions
Gain an understanding of the use and application of solar water pumping

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Possible things that can be written or discussed here:

Solar water pumping, what is it? Briefly how is works.

Advantages, drawbacks, applications
Points from lecture notes
Equations related to it from lecture notes
What is irradiance? Etc. etc. units, importance etc
And anything relevant you guys can find, or if someone has written it, copy paste it nigga, if is relevant
Oh, almost forgot, if your using any website, and find it hard to reference, you can use this site, it does it
automatically, just copy and paste the link. You may have to insert the name of the author manually and year the
web page was published

http://www.citethisforme.com/

and use a constant style, if one person uses apa, or ieee, everyone use that style please. Thank you

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METHODOLOGY

The following steps were done to carry out the experiment

The students familiarized themselves with the solar pumping system set up.
The solar panel was set so that it received the most sunlight. The incident solar radiation in the panel of
the plane was measured.
The pumping system was set up so that it pumped water to a small height. The flow rate and the head
was measured.
From these measurements, the hydraulic power required to lift the water through the given height was
calculated.
The current and voltage to the pump was measured and the pump input power was calculated.
The pump efficiency and the overall system efficiency was calculated.
Then the pumping head was varied and the effects of it on the flow rate pressure and efficiencies was
investigated.
A head was selected at which the pump provided a reasonable flow rate. Then it was investigated how
changes in input power affected the systems performance at a constant head. A graph was plotted and the
results were discussed.

RESULTS

The following raw data was recorded for post analysis;

Raw Data

Head (m) Input Voltage (V) Input Current (I) Solar Irradiance Volume flow (
m3 /s
0.7 11.00 2.40 101.56 0.021 103
1.0 4.50 1.85 83.25 1.84 104
1.3 4.97 1.77 66.60 1.60 104
1.6 3.36 1.562 63.825 4.40 105

Calculated Values

The raw data was then used to calculate the Hydraulic power, the Input power from solar cells, pump
efficiency and lastly the overall efficiency of the system.

SAMPLE CALCULATIONS(HE DIDNT SAY ANYTHING ABOUT WRITING THIS IN HIS

EMAIL, BUT IF YOU GUYS WANT TOI THINK ITS NECSSSARY SINCE SAMPLE
CALCULATIONS USUALLY COME UNDER RESULTS NOT SURE THOUGH)

(IN RYANS NOTEBOOK. I CAN DO ITJUST SEND ME A PIC OF ITLOL)

DISCUSSION

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1)Discuss your results and what your data shows.

As this increases, that also increase or decreases, it is directly inversely proportional etc. idk. something
along those lines I guess

2) Estimate how much the water pumping system will daily yearly?

We did it per hour I think, the flow rate. Multiply with 24 for daily and (24 x 365)

3) What would the cost for this be if electricity from the grid was used instead of from a solar panel?

33.10 cents/ kWh x 24 x 365 = $2899.50 per annum.

4) What would it cost using a traditional petrol driven system?

Range is $1- $40 kWh x 24 x 365 = $8760 - $350400 per annum.

5) Discuss applications where solar water solar pumping could be used here in the south pacific and in
your country in particular?

It is applicable in the South Pacific and Fiji especially since Fiji is tropical country which lies close to
the equator. Its application can be:

On farms for irrigation and agriculture.

A Distillery Plant with a Solar farm with available real estate
Residential and Recreational purposes.

CONCLUSION

Solar panels only make power an average of 5hrs per day with a maximum capacity factor of 12% and
are not portable.Maximum power is limited to 100 kW at peak sun angle, which is not realistically
achievable. Due to the limited power production throughout the day with a solar system, the need to
store power is elevated unless another form of power is available to the consumer.On the other hand
solar power generation reduces cost considerably in comparison to diesel or grid producing about
_____ (< from results) of power. Hence it can be said that solar water pumping is not a feasible
concept on a large scale but a good application for residential and recreational purposes.

POSSIBLE SOURCES OF ERROR

The following are the possible sources of errors which may be the cause of result deviations:

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Faulty equipment
Increase in resistance of the wire since the copper / ends of them were exposed to rain
Cloudy weather which lead to a poor performance of the overall system
Fluctuations in solar irradiance make detecting efficiency difficult.

REFERENCE

[1] Dankoff, W. & McCarney, Solar Powered Water Pumping. Home Power Magazine, #11

[2]"Wind Power vs Diesel Power vs Solar Power (Comparison)", Uprise Energy | Renewable Energy &
Efficiency Innovations, 2017. [Online]. Available: http://upriseenergy.com/blog/2012/9/15/wind-power-vs-
diesel-power-vs-solar-power-comparison. [Accessed: 26- Feb- 2017].

[3]F. Authority, "Electricity Tariffs and Rates", Fea.com.fj, 2016. [Online]. Available:
http://www.fea.com.fj/your-home/electricity-tariffs-and-rates/. [Accessed: 26- Feb- 2017].

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