CHAPTER FIVE

CONCLUSION, RECOMMENDATION AND IMPROVEMENTS FOR FUTURE WORK

5.1 CONCLUSION

The aim of carrying out this project is to design and construct a solar electricity generating system consisting

of pure sine wave inverter and tracker which has been achieved. We have implemented our design,

constructed the sine wave inverter and tracker using available resources within our means. The inverter

produces pure sine wave of 60Hz, 240 volts with 3000 VA output power. The complete system was assembled

and tested. The efficiency of the solar generation improved based on the introdution of a single axis tracker.

The single axis tracker testing results shows that there is an improvement in the energy generated through

solar tracking process than for traditional fixed solar system. It was found from the result that the 200W solar

panel with the tracker had generated approximately 195Watt-hour of energy and the panel without solar

tracker has generated 150Watt-hour. From the analysis of the data gathered in previous chapter shows that

there is an improvement in power generation as we are able to achieved almost 25% of more energy

conversion than for the fixed solar system. All the data gathered were from 200w solar panel setup.This

improvement in generation is highly beneficial for large scale power generation.

5.2 RECOMMENDATION

The solar electricity generating system has the potential to replace petrol/diesel generator in future especially

for lighting and running small electrical appliances in the laboratories and in home. The maintenance cost is

quite low with only investment in many batteries. Battery needs to be changed once every three to four years.

The solar generating sytem can be used as backup power supply when national grid fails.The system can

therefore be used as alternative energy solution for developing countries such as Nigeria. And with addition of

tracker the efficiency of solar generating system can be greatly improved. We therefore recommend that solar
tracker can be integrated into existing solar system in order to improve the efficiency and performance of the

system.

5.3 . IMPROVEMENTS FOR FUTURE WORK

As this project only lasted the course of a semester, there are many ways that the current system that

was implemented could be improved upon. There is need for more outdoor testing of the solar tracker,

especially for different weather conditions. The time for this project is limited as testing was only done on a

sunny single day. Although, the single axis tracker is only designed as a prototype, it still need some perfection

especially in packaging in order for it to be used in rugged situation such as harsh weather.The motors and

control circuit enclosed just in plastic case must be protected from rain and sun, by adding metal covers for

the motors and also improving the design of the sensor holder making it waterproof.The tracker software and

hardware can still be used to drive a real and very large solar panel array. There could also be further

improvement on our hardware and software design.

Also, We did not have time to get large performance data from the working system. In the future, we

would like to see large amount of tracking data collected from our solar tracking system compared with

that of a traditional fixed system. This is an important test in determining the long-term feasibility of our

solar generating system. A detailed study can be further carried out on the complete solar generating system

to ascertain the percentage increase of electricity yield by using this system to establish whether or not the

system is viable. Lastly, It would be desirable to monitor the complete solar generating system and build up

database for future work.