ACADEMIC PROJET DETAILS

PROJECT TITLE: Investigation & fabrication of Hydraulic Sun Tracker.

AIM: By minimizing the angle of incidence between the incoming sunlight and solar panel, this
increases the amount of energy produced from a fixed amount of installed power generating
capacity.

APPARATUS: Solar panel, shaft, pelton wheel, 2 bearings, 2 clamp, cane (water tank) & Battery.

SET-UP: Hydraulic sun tracker consists of a common shaft, at one end of the shaft pelton wheel
arrangement has done and another end solar panel mounted. Shaft is inserted in two bearings &
clamped to base. Battery is attached by electric circuit to the solar panel to store the solar energy in
the form of power. A cane is placed above the level from the set-up.

WORKING PRINCIPLE: Hydraulic sun tracker is a single-axis tracker (A tracker rotating in the east-
west direction only). The sun travels through 360 degrees east-west a day, i.e. 15degree/hour east-
west. (Earth rotates and sun get shifted).During the operation water from the cane fall on the pelton
wheel’s cup, which generate the rotating motion to the shaft. This motion transfer to other end of the
shaft were solar panel is mounted i.e. solar panel will also rotate. The flow rate from the cane has
maintained such that it will rotate the pelton wheel/solar panel 15degree/hour. This angle of rotation
will keep the solar panel parallel to the sun’s rotation direction; sunlight will directly fall on the solar
panel throughout the day without any disturbance which in terms will produce more power, stored in
the battery compare to fixed mount solar panel.

PRACTICAL DIFFICULTIES & SOLUTIONS: The major difficulty during the project progress was
rotating the solar panel/pelton wheel 15degree/hour. Such an angle of precision was difficult to obtain
by Hydraulic force. The pelton wheel used to get sudden angle of rotation of 45 degree or more at a
time. The solution was introduction of “Reducing Gears” mechanism. Now set-up modified, one more
shaft (say shaft No.2), 2 bearings and 2 clamps are introduced and pelton wheel is shifted to one end
of shaft No.2(opposite direction of solar panel), & the solar panel kept as it is on shaft NO.1.This two
shafts are linked to each other by reducing gears. Flow rate from the water cane adjusted such that
pelton wheel (shaft No.2) will rotate 45 degree/hour, this angle of rotation reduced to 15 degree/hour
by interconnecting reducing gears & transfer to shaft NO.1, and solar panel (shaft No.1) will get rotate
by 15 degree/hour. Ratchet Mechanism type arrangement done at shaft No.2 to give the constant 45
degree angle of rotation to pelton wheel. It will hold the shaft at every 45 degree/hour angle and will
stop over-rotating.The next minor difficulty was maintaining the proper water level in the cane, so
that flow rate should not get reduce. The solution was fitting of float valve in the cane at proper level,
which will maintain the require water level.

RESULTS: System checked one day by keeping fixed mount & next day checked by Hydraulic sun
tracking. There was 35 % increase in the power compare to fixed mount.

FUTURE WORK: The main advantage of Hydraulic sun tracking system is it is totally depend on Non-
conventional energy, water & sunlight; it will have scope in future. But some arrangement need to be
done to increase the efficiency of the system like Hydraulic sun tracker is a single-axis tracker, (sun
east-west movement only it takes into account), the sun also moves through 46 degrees north-south
over the period of a year, which Hydraulic sun tracker not taking into account. In future to improve
the efficiency, need certain mechanism which would be able to rotate solar panel in north-south
direction also (Dual-axis tracking).After introducing reducing gears & Ratchet mechanism still it is
difficult to get accurate angle of rotation. In future need to do some arrangement to get accurate angle
of rotation, which can further
Increase the efficiency of the system.