Automatic solar following system (heliostat)

In the renewable energy field El.Ma. is currently engaged in the development and realization of solar systems for the electrical and thermal energy cogeneration, mainly of dish and cylindric parabolic concentrators.

The solar concentrators technology has to follow an on-going and exact research about solar radiation with the optimum angle on the receiver located on the focus line, which can be thermal-thermodynamic or photovoltaic, so that solar beams are as much parallel as possible to the parabolic system axis.

Obviously, a dish parabolic system should dispose on an automatic two-axis sun following system (azimuth and elevation), while a linear focus cylindric system can dispose on an automatic one-axis sun following system (azimuth or elevation), by keeping the other axis costant during the time.

It is interesting to notice that also in case of traditional flat solar panels (photovoltaic or thermal), in comparison to the traditional fixed installation with azimuth and tilt costant during the time, the right orientation through a sun following system allows to optimize the efficiency.

For these reasons, and thanks to skills and the great experience with the process control CN2, El.Ma. has planned and realized an automatic sun following system based on alternative or complementary models:

real-time calculation of solar coordinates in relation to hour, day, latitude and longitude with the maximum precision;
search of the solar radiation with the optimum angle through the use of sensors.

The control board presents the following features:

low consumption and low cost 16 bit microcontroller;
CAN interface with protocol CAN open;
2xRS232 interfaces;
DCF77 for automated setting of date and hour;
sensors for monitoring wind speed (anemometer) and temperature (4xPT100);
possibility to connect two stepper motors (in the future DC motors with encoders for the positioning feedback will be supported);
management of limit switches.

It's previewed the connection with a sensor in order to calibrate the system, to compensate installation errors.

An easy manual configuration of parameters (GPS coordinates, reduction ratios and cinematic values) is assured by onboard keyboard and display; obviously these settings can be applied through a PC/notebook connection via RS232 serial port.

In the future a GPS and a compass, which communicate through the NMEA0183 protocol, will allow the system to obtain latitude/longitude and the North-South direction.

In order to syncronize more panels or solar concentrators (array) it's previewed the development of a master board with a 32 bit CPU and 10/100 Mbit LAN interface with protocols TCP/IP, UDP/IP, ICMP and HTTP: a web server will be included in order to allow an easy configuration of the solar concentrator and to display real-time following data:

electrical parameters;
thermal-termodynamic parameters;
temporal parameters;
solar coordinates;
measurement of luminous intensity on orientation sensors;
chronological report of possible malfunctions.

Through the supervision software installed on a PC, it will be possible to control a plant; the program will allow to monitor all information and the plant functioning. Moreover, it will be possible to send specific orders to a single panel and/or to groups of panels, firmware updates etc., in local or remotely, via Internet or through a modem GSM/GPRS.

If you need further details or information about the purchase of the sun following system, please fill the contacts page.


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