Abstract:
Abstract: A concentrating Photovoltaic/Thermal (PV/T) integration device is normally confined to the mutual restriction of sun tracking accuracy and tracking range. In this study, a novel high-efficient solar tracking controller with dual-sensor joint control was designed to optimize the electrical and thermal performance of the PV/T system. The rough surface plane of glass was introduced to the PV/T integration device, where the sunlight was reflected to the concentrating cell components for multiple times concentrating, thereby increasing the power generation of solar cell per unit area. Part of concentrated light and heat was still collected, although the flowing water was cooling through the cells in the PV/T panel. A plurality of light-gathering units were fixed on the long axis of azimuth drive, while connected through the height angle linkage frame, for the tracking of sun azimuth via the azimuth push rod. A height angle push rod was used to push the parallelogram connecting rod for the height angle of the sun. The specific procedure was: 1) A power conditioning circuit was used to amplify small piece signals of the solar cell, and then to convert into a standard signal for a photoelectric sensor. Two sensors were used on the east and west frame to capture the azimuth angle of the sun whereas another two sensors were on the north and south for the altitude angle of the sun. Four photoelectric sensors were installed at the top of the light-concentrating frame on the side of a rectangular parallelepiped to form a rough tracking photoelectric sensor, where the condensed light spot was collected from the reflection of the plane mirror. Another four sensors were installed at the four corners of light-concentrating cell assembly for a fine tracking photoelectric sensor. 2) A single chip of Atmega 32 was selected as the core control circuit. The rough tracking photoelectric sensor was used to capture the position of the sun in a large range whereas the fine tracking photoelectric sensor was utilized to precisely locate the condensing spot on the entire photovoltaic panel. 3) A coordinated and stable performance of dual photoelectric sensors was achieved after the optimization of the tracking control strategy. Specifically, two parameters were optimized, including the tracking accuracy of the spotlight, and the driving frequency of the push rod. The angle sensors were installed on the azimuth and altitude drive shafts, where the azimuth and altitude tracking of the sun were collected per minute. A comparison was made on the theoretical and astronomical data. Furthermore, a dual photoelectric tracking sun controller for PV/T integration device was also tested in Xiamen City of South China (118.09°E, 24.56°N) on July 11, 2018. An optimal combination was obtained, where the sunlight was captured from 0°-180° with a tracking error of less than 0.5°. The movement of the angle push rod was slow-fast-slow, and the running time interval of the height angle push rod was always maintained at 4-5 min/time. The PV/T integration device generated 3.94 kW·h on the same day, and the working temperature of concentrating cell module was between 53-60 ℃. Light and heat of 18.25 MJ (5.07 kW·h) were collected, 1.29 times of photovoltaic effect.