Browsing by Author "Teklemariam Gochem"

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    Design and Experimental Investigation of New Manual Solar Tracking for Water Pumping System
    (Addis Ababa University, 2024-12) Teklemariam Gochem; Ebrahim Tilahun (PhD)
    Ethiopia has abundant solar energy and irrigation potential which if exploited properly would contribute a great significance to the economic development of the country. Eventhough solar energy for water pumping is the most promising technology in Ethiopia, still less than 1% of 5.2 kWh/𝑚2has been exploited per day. Due to low system efficiency of conventional solar water pumping system, the initial cost of the system remained very high. Therefore, the main objective of this research is to design, manufacture and investigate an innovative solar tracking system for water pumping. The system designed by solid work software after sizing of solar water pumping system and determination of the different solar angles. Based on the design the new manual solar tracking system manufactured and assembled in Ethiopia Water Technology Institute. The new design has three solar panel (having voltage of 28.78 V, current 6.6A and power 190 W each) only the two panels move easily to track the sun manually. During experimental investigation, two solar tracking system (fixed and manual) were compared based on their efficiency. The result shows that the solar irradiance loss in the newly designed manual solar tracking system was reduced by 22% while the efficiency increased by 16% than the fixed axis solar collector. The result also revealed that, the manual tracking system took 7.5 hours to pump 30 𝑚3of water whereas the fixed axis collector requires 8.3 hours to pump the same volume of water. This difference came due to making the two solar panel faced towards the direction of the sun especially in the early morning and late afternoon. Therefore, disseminating this new manual solar tracking system able to, maximize crop productivity; reduce initial cost used in conventional solar water pumping system. Hence, the novel manual tracking system developed in this study is cost effective and robust alternative to conventional solar water pumping system.