Monitoring and Controlling of Solar Watered Pumping using Arduino – LabVIEW

Abstract

Energy is a major input for economic development of any country. The prices of the fossil fuels steeply increasing, So Renewable energy sources plays a vital role in reducing the consumption of Conventional energy sources and its environmental impacts for water pumping applications. Solar Energy provides great potential from all the sources of renewable energy. Solar energy can be obtained in two ways, using Solar thermal collectors and Solar Photovoltaic System. In Solar thermal collectors the heat energy is converted into electrical energy, where as in case of Solar Photovoltaic System the Light energy is converted into electrical energy through Photovoltaic effect. In Photovoltaic effect when photovoltaic cell is exposed to sunlight it generates voltage or electric current flows. PV Array is a combination of PV modules in series and parallel. It produces direct current (DC) when exposed to sunlight. This DC current is supplied either to a DC pump, which pumps water whenever the solar energy available or stored in batteries for later use by the pump. The rate of flow of the water pumped is determined by both the intensity of the solar energy available and the size of the PV array . It can be widely used in domestic installations and systems installed by utility companies where they have found that a PV solution is the best solution for remote agricultural needs such as Water Pumping for Crops or Livestock and it also helps in distribution of Water from Overhead Tank . A solar powered Water Pumping is made up of two components. These are PV Panels and Motor Driver for Pumping. In overhead tanks, the speed of the flow of water is controlled based on the load demand. The required DC voltage is supplied to the pump controller from the battery. The pump controller limits the starting currents and gives the required amount of DC voltage to motor pump. This project uses microcontroller Arduino to control the automatic switching off or switching on of the motor based on the water level in over head tank. Monitoring and controlling of the system are done using LabVIEW. This control algorithm runs in loops and verifies the tank on each iteration until the required operation is done.