Track Check
How much extra power can a solar panel collect by tracking the sun? SwitchDoc Labs puts it to the test.
Getting more power from your solar panels
Lead Image © Oleksiy Tsupe, 123RF.com
In this article, I build a simple solar tracking system using a Raspberry Pi and a stepper motor, with the purpose of experimentally verifying the gain in power from a solar panel that is tracking the sun compared with a fixed solar panel. Oh – and it looks cool in time-lapse video [1].
Solar Power Systems
Over the past few years I have built a lot of solar-powered systems: Project Curacao, SunAirPlus, WeatherPi, and the recent solar-powered ESP8266 [2]. Although I've fooled around with sun tracking systems, I have never built one all the way out and then gathered the data to figure out if it was worth it. Now that the sun has returned to the Pacific Northwest, the time is right.
SunTracking – The Theory
A single solar cell never seems to put out quite enough power to run a Raspberry Pi all the time, and the new Raspberry Pis take even more power. One improvement you can make is to add the hardware to track the sun with your solar panels, which could increase your solar power generation by 20 to 30 percent.
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