University of Sharjah s pioneering project promises...

This groundbreaking project is expected to revolutionise global effort for clean energy as tracking of the sun yields higher performance than fixed PV

A team of University of Sharjah students is all set to boost the quest for clean energy with their latest project, moving solar PV panel, which has been built to follow the sun to yield maximum energy. The groundbreaking product is developed by a team of three final year students of Sustainable and Renewable Energy Engineering at the College of Engineering, University of Sharjah.

The young innovators, Hiba Al Najjar, Maather Gornass and Amna Al Hamoudi, have been receiving rave reviews for their pioneering project currently being showcased at the Expo Centre Sharjah, as part of the university's participation in the UAE Innovation Week 2016.

Hiba Al Najjar said that usually solar panels are fixed in a certain direction while the sun keeps moving from East to West. Thus those solar panels fail to produce maximum energy. To yield maximum energy, two solar PV panels are used at some locations. Alternatively, solar panels can be moved manually at certain intervals, which is not possible for big projects. At some locations, solar panels have been set to move direction with the time.

Our project is unique as it is closest to nature move with the sun. It does not need manual efforts to change direction or an operator to fix the time. The system tracks the sun movement during the day to produce maximum power, increasing efficiency of the device. It can also be connected to a storage device to save the excess power to be used later on, she added.

The young scientists were confident that their groundbreaking project will revolutionise global effort for clean energy as tracking of the sun yields higher performance than fixed PV.

Hiba said, The most important aspect is minimal usage of technology. The solar PV panel has been fixed with a Close-Loop two-axis tracking system. The Close-Loop controller actively updates the tracking motion of PV.

She pointed out that this solar tracking system can be used anywhere to eliminate the effect of shade on any of the sensors that may be caused as the sun moves during day-time. The system detects and activates motors, or actuators, to move the device back into a position where al sensors are once again equally illuminated. That increases the efficiency of the device as much as possible.

LINK:	http://www.sharjahmedia.ae/en/media-centre/news/22/11/2016/university-...
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