HELIOTROPIO Active solar tracker system is a greatly effective Single or Double axis system which monitors the sun’s movement from dawn to dusk. In order to face the sun directly all the time, the photovoltaic collectors are situated on the moving bottom of the system. Due to this fact, the solar collectors’ performance is boosted by 25% to 40% (measured in Greece). In a daily basis, we measured an increase up to 72% (measured on June 2008).
The panel of the tracker moves from East to West during the day, and the orientation of the base is Southern.
It comes in two versions: In Heliotropio I the movement from east to west is performed automatically while, the azimouth movement is done manually. In Heliotropio II version instead, both movements are performed automatically by the system, without any user intervention.
The aptitude’s angle e of PV collectors regarding the horizontal axis is altered either manually (single-axis edition) or automatically (double-axis edition) from 20° to 65° so as to be adapted to the 4 seasons accordingly.
Each morning the system is oriented east and watches the movement of the sun starting from dawn time. The tracker device starts its movement from the time the sun rises depending of the vernal equinox of the place it’s been set up. The monitoring of the horizon from the tracker is completed independently of whether the sky is sunny or cloudy in order to gather as much solar energy as possible. In this way, we avoid the usage of expensive, complicate and delicate light and optical sensors thus giving us ultra reliability against time.
The path of the sun is being watched by the tracker from east to west while the axis of the system moves approximately 9° in about 20 total movements (steps). The steps of the moving axis can be altered (raised or reduced). The system is set (depending the situation where it is set) at the exact point where it faces the noon-time sun (peak of produced solar energy). The other points of horizon are 20 in total; ten points before the center of the horizon (noon) and ten after that.
During night time, the system is automatically set facing east - ready and waiting for the sunrise to come.
All movable parts are stainless and water resistant in temperature conditions from -30oC to +70oC. The electric motor works only for 20 minutes over the 24h cycle making system's deterioration over time, equal to zero. The yearly energy consumption is less than 10 kWh per year.
The only maintenance required is a light lubrication of some moving parts only once or twice a year. A manual fuctioning was also provisioned in the unlikely case of a system failure.
The tracker system as well as the method of its movement is already patent pending with application Nr. 20070100557
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