Solar energy measurement using pic microcontroller

Solar energy measurement:This project is designed to measure an energy of solar panels. In this solar panel energy measurement project, you will get an idea how to measure solar energy using different sensors and pic microcontroller. Followings are the main parts used in this project :

Block diagram of solar energy measurement system:

Block diagram of solar energy meter is shown below.

solar energy measurement system block diagram
solar energy measurement system block diagram

At the right side of the diagram is a solar panel which energy you want to measure. Voltage sensor is used to measure a voltage of solar panel. Current sensor is used to measure current flowing to load from solar panel. As we know, solar panels are dc power sources. So output voltage and current solar panel is DC. So we can easily measure solar power by using dc power formula. I will discuss it later. Liquid crystal display  is used to display the value of current, voltage and power of solar panel. 5 volt dc power is used to provide operating voltages to microcontroller and liquid crystal display. You can either design dc power supply from AC power source or you can use a battery to provide constant 5 volt to microcontroller and LCD.

Circuit diagram of solar energy measurement system:

Circuit diagram of solar energy meter is given below. I will explain each and every step of this article in the video in last part of this article.

solar

In above-given circuit diagram, the voltage divider is used to divide voltage to lower than 5 volt. Because microcontroller can not read voltage more than 5 volt. Therefor voltage divider is used to lower voltage less than 5 volt. Polar and nonpolar capacitors are used to remove harmonics and to provide constant voltage to adc pin of microcontroller. I will explain about analog to digital converter later or either i will post a separate article on it. Polar capacitor is used to avoid voltage fluctuation and non polar capacitor is used remove harmonics and it will stop harmonics to read to microcontroller which may damage microcontroller. If you don’t know how to measure voltage using pic microcontroller and how to use ADC check following articles:

A shunt resistor of .05 ohm is used in series to load. Voltage drop across shunt resistor used to measure current. In other words, shunt resistor used as a transducers which is used to convert current into voltage form because microcontroller can not read current directly. Output of  shunt resistor is  fed to difference amplifier. Difference amplifier is also step up voltage. Because in case of very low current, small voltage will appear across shunt resistor and microcontroller can not read voltage less than its resolution. I have a posted a separate article on how to measure current using pic microcontroller. check following article:

How to measure current using pic microcontroller 

liquid crystal display is used to display values of current, voltage and power on lcd.  It is very easy to interface LCD with pic16f877a microcontroller. If you don’t know about how to interface lcd with pic microcontroller and its programming, check following article:

How to interface LCD with PIC microcontroller

Video demonstration of solar energy measurement system using pic microcontroller

 

So I have explained all the points you need to design solar energy measurement system using pic microcontroller. I have also written separate articles on voltage measurement, current measurement and LCD interfacing with pic microcontroller. If reading all these articles, you can easily design your own solar energy measurement system. because you just have to combine code of voltage measurement, current measurement and lcd interfacing. You should also know about c language. So with a little bit knowledge of c programming you can write your own code.  If you don’t want to write code yourself and want to purchase code for this project, email me at microcontrollerslabhub@gmail.com.

36 thoughts on “Solar energy measurement using pic microcontroller”

  1. Sir. Muje. Solar energy measurement using pic microcontroller is project ki puri Softcopy chahiye mai is project ko karna chahta hu but sir ise koi application nahi use kar sakate kya

    Reply
  2. I have used 3loads in solar panel… And then If solar energy does not Sufficient the connected load in that condition we have using grid supply.. How to control pic Mc…?? We are using relay trip the load….. How to make control pic mc program

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  3. HI ING i am very happy for all projects .i need a code for my project and shematic for RF directional coupler detector; Forward and revers power ( FWD,REFL)
    I NEED TO read this project to digital(LCD Display)i try to write one with flowcode not code
    Please send me the info to my email

    Reply
  4. I want to do this project, plz guide me and also give me sizes of components to be used, I want to add on light intensity on the micro controller, plz guide me, thanks

    Reply

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