Experimental Analysis and Monitoring of Photovoltaic Panel Parameters

Abstract

In this article, we establish a technique based on the internet of things to simultaneously monitor the main values that characterize a photovoltaic solar panel. This technique allows to discover the problems and the monstrosities during the operation. This study also allows to collect the parameters and quantities measured for analysis. This method is based on exploiting the advantages of IoT technology. For this it will be a good choice to use and exploit the Esp32 microcontroller, because the two WIFI and Bluetooth modules are integrated. The design process began by creating a system to measure the intensity of the electric current delivered by the photovoltaic panel. A current sensor was implemented for this purpose. To prevent damage to the microcontroller, a voltage divider was proposed to decrease the voltage at the pin level of the Esp32 for measurement. Next, the power and energy values were calculated to estimate the production capacity. In the final stage, a low-power Bluetooth link was created to transmit the four quantities to a smartphone or other compatible device. Real-time values were presented as graphs on the free ThingSpeak platform and displayed on both, an LCD screen and the serial monitor of the Esp32 microcontroller. The system was tested without any problems or errors.