ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECT OF SHADING ON THE SOLAR PANEL

ABSTRACT

This project was aimed at the analysis of a solar panel, the effects of shading on the  solar panel output and the effects of dust particles on the solar panel while proffering  solutions on how to minimize these effects on the solar panel. The purpose for this  experiment is to analyse the differences in the efficiency of the shaded and unshaded  solar panels.   To effectively carry out this project, the materials used were a 12VDC battery, a solar  panel, an MPPT charge controller, two voltmeters and two ammeters. The solar pane l was connected to the charge controller in parallel and the charge controller was  connected to the battery in parallel also. Two voltmeters were connected in parallel, one  to  the solar panel and one to the battery to  get the input and output voltages  respectively. Two ammeters were also connected in series,  one to the solar panel and  one to the battery to get the corresponding input and output currents and the power  was then calculated using those parameters. The analysis was conducted to get the  variations in values obtained undernon-shading and the various forms of shading, the  variations between the values obtained in a clean panel and a dusty panel were also  gotten. This was carried out thrice in a month for a period of three months.  The out put values from  the charge controller showed very large variations when  comparison was made in anon-shaded and shaded conditional so a clean panel to a  dusty panel. It was also observed that under some forms of shading, the battery will not  charge. This was described in tables and graphs. In conclusion, the output of the solar  panel is greatly affected by reduction in irradiance getting into the solar panel