ABSTRACT

In today’s world energy crisis is one of the most

important concerns. In the world to avoid the
dependency on exhaustible resources solar
energy is rapidly gaining the focus. Solar
energy, as an important means of expanding
renewable energy, uses solar cells that convert
solar energy into electrical energy. (ED Coyle,
RA Simmons - 2014 - library.oapen.org).
Kenya has one of the most active commercial
PV system market in the developing world, with
an installed PV capacity in the range of 4 MW.
An estimated 200,000 rural households in
Kenya have solar home systems and annual PV
sales in Kenya are between 25,000-30,000 PV
modules. In 2002, total PV sales were estimated
to have grown by 170% in 8 yrs, even without
government intervention or policies to promote
the uptake of PV technology. (Energypedia on
Kenya energy crisis, 2022)

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 Our aim is to approach methods to increase the
efficiency of the solar cells by tracking the sun.
We found that a example of a experimental
model of the device is based on a servo motor
that is intelligently controlled by an Arduino
UNO board that moves a mini PV panel
according to the rotation of the sun.
Firstly, we attached the Arduino and servo
motor to a cardboard structure, soldered the
LDR and resistors together and attached them to
the solar panel.
Secondly, we connected the wires to the
respective slots in the Arduino uno and lastly we
uploaded the code to the Arduino.
In summary our project is aimed at improving
the efficiency of solar panels by using advanced
technologies such as the Arduino uno and servo
motors to battle out the energy crisis the world
is facing.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It gives us immense pleasure to present this
report on “AUTOMATED SOLAR
TRACKING” carried out at SCLP SAMAJ
SCHOOL, Nairobi west. We express our
heartfelt gratitude to those who directly and
indirectly contributed towards the completion of
this project. We would like to thank Mrs. Esther
Sharma, Principal, SCLPS School, for allowing
us to undertake this project. We would like to
thank Mr. Boniface Ombui for the valuable
guidance and our project guide and for
continuous support towards our project and
supervising it at every level. Our friends for
sharing their ideas on our projects and giving us
suggestions. The Samaj school laboratory for
providing some of the materials needed to build
this project. We would like to dearly thank our
parents for their financial and moral support
towards this project. We thank almighty for
giving us strength to reach to this stage.
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 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
- Light energy is very plentiful in nature.
Solar panels have been created for the
purpose of converting light energy to
electrical energy. This source of renewable
energy has been used in many low-cost
government housing initiatives provided by
Kenyan government. (The Standard: Low
cost housing initiatives by the government,
March 2022)
We have found it alarming to see that houses
that use solar panels do not get the
maximum energy output they can, this is
simply because maximum light does not
infiltrate the solar panel.

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 Justification
To solve the issue, we came up
with an idea of tracking the
movements of the sun, to obtain
maximum light infiltration into
the solar panel. This increase
the power output in low cost
housing which will eventually
reduce electricity bills. The
concept is to use a Arduino uno
microcontroller to read LDR
values to intelligently move the
servo motor attached to the
Solar panel which tilts it
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towards maximum light
intensity.

Objectives
• We aim to design a model
which tracks the movements of
the sun to make maximum light
infiltrate the solar panel, by
using advancing technologies
such as Arduino uno R3
microprocessor, to tilt the panel
according to the positions of the
sun that improves the efficiency
of solar panels.
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• To compare the power output
produced by a stationary solar
panel to our innovative rotating
solar panel.

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VARIABLES
The following are some of the variables
identified in our project:
• CONSTANT VARIABLE: Speed of
the motor; The microServo Motor rotates
at a constant speed of approximately
(6V) 0.05m/s /60o

• INDEPENDENT VARIABLE:
Light intensity; the amount of light
hitting the solar panel according to the
time of the day

• DEPENDENT VARIABLES:
Voltage and current generated by the
solar panel are dependent on the amount
of light hitting the solar panel. The
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greater the amount of light intensity the
high the voltage and current output

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FUTURE RECCOMENDATIONS
To improve the sensitivity of the LDR
instead of using Jumper wires, we
recommend using a Fibre optic cable
which has higher sensitivity to slight
changes and hence improves the
sensitivity of the LDR and makes it tilt to
the slightest changes.
- To avoid the model being damaged by
the rain cover the model with a
transparent cover. So it is still able to
obtain results in the rain.
- Use strong materials to build the
structure so that it is able to sustain for a
long time.

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Time (hrs) Voltage Current Power

(V) (mA) (W)

0900 0.42 40.20 0.017

1000 1.23 69.23 0.085

1200 3.88 145.33 0.564

1300 3.34 133.2 0.445

1500 1.33 70.22 0.093

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 Time (hr) Voltage (V) Current Power

(mA) (W)

0900 1.85 76.00 0.141

1000 2.64 82.00 0.216

1200 5.52 222.22 1.227

1300 4.77 184.25 0.880

1500 2.22 79.00 0.175

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Materials and apparatus used:
• An Arduino Uno R3
• A Servo motor SG90
• 2 Light Dependent Resistors
• Two 10K Resistor
• 6 Jumper Wire
• A 6V Solar Panel
• Glue Gun
• Power source e.g Power bank
• Digital Multimeter DT-830B

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Experiment 1: Building the
Solar tracker
PROCEDURE
1. First we took a 6x6 piece of cardboard
and by using double sided tape we stuck
the Arduino Uno to the cardboard.
2. Then using more pieces of cardboard
we made a table like structure and the
Arduino should be facing down.
3.Using some glue, we attached the servo
motor to one of the leg of the table like
structure.
4.Then we soldered the 2 LDR’s and 2
resistors together and attached them to
both sides of the solar panel. Then

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conjoined the solar panel with the LDR’s
to the servo motor.
5.Using 6 jumper wires we soldered 4 of
them to the LDR and resistors and 2 to
the resistors only and then connected all
the jumper wires to their respective slots
in the Arduino Uno. Black and red to
servo pins, yellow and green to Ground
pin and Analog pin respectively
6. Then we connected the Arduino to the
power source.
7. Then uploaded the code.

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