Real-Time Solar Panel Monitoring with Arduino: Low-Cost Data Acquisition System

Necessary tools and machines

About this project

This project proposes a Low-cost way of virtual instrumentation for real-time monitoring of the PV panel characteristics such as voltage, current and power. The system design is based on a low-cost Arduino acquisition board. The acquisition is made through a low-cost current and voltage sensors, and data are presented in Excel by using the PLX-DAQ data acquisition Macro.

The structure of the equipment used is shown in the Figure below. The PV current and voltage are obtained through the current and voltage sensors. The output of the two sensors is then transmitted to the microcontroller of the Arduino UNO board. During the acquisition process, the data obtained are stored and plotted in real-time in the Excel spreadsheet.

This project is linked to this research paper.

Explanatory video:

Code

• Real-time data acquisition of solar panel using Arduino and Excel

Real-time data acquisition of solar panel using Arduino and ExcelArduino

/*****************************************************************************
         Aboubakr El Hammoumi
*****************************************************************************/

/******************************************************************************
   PROJECT :  Instrumentation of PV panel characteristics
   Function : Real-time data acquisition of solar panel using Arduino and Excel
 ******************************************************************************
 *                                                                            *
    Written by  :  Aboubakr El Hammoumi                    Date : 04/05/2018
 *                                                                            *
    Email : aboubakr.elhammoumi@usmba.ac.ma
 ******************************************************************************


/*initialization function*/

void setup() {
//serial connection setup
//opens serial port, sets data rate to 9600 bps
Serial.begin(9600);
//clear all data that’s been place in already
Serial.println("CLEARDATA");
//define the column headings (PLX-DAQ command)
Serial.println("LABEL,t,voltage,current,power");
}
/*the main code*/
void loop() {
//measuring voltage using "B25 0 to 25V" Voltage Sensor
//measuring current using "INA169" Current Sensor
//reading of the current and voltage from sensors
float voltage = analogRead(A0)*5*5.0/1023;     //PV panel voltage
float current = analogRead(A1)*5.0/1023;     //PV panel current
float power = voltage*current;               //PV panel power

//allows the serial port to send data to Excel in real-time
Serial.print("DATA,TIME,"); // PLX-DAQ command
Serial.print(voltage);    //send the voltage to serial port
Serial.print(",");
Serial.print(current);    //send the current to serial port
Serial.print(",");
Serial.println(power);  //send the power to serial port
delay(1000); //wait 1s before repeating
}

Schematics