Design and Experimental Investigation of New Manual Solar Tracking for Water Pumping System
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Date
2024-12
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
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.
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Keywords
Current, efficiency, solar water pumping, solar radiation, water demand, voltage, current