Energy Monitoring of a SMME Photovoltaic Power

System
Jaundré Jackson SP Daniel Chowdhury
Department of Electrical Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering
Tshwane University of Technology Tshwane University of Technology
Pretoria Pretoria
[email protected] [email protected]

Abstract — There exists a need for an affordable but

effective PV power system monitoring system for LITERATURE REVIEW
small, medium and micro-sized enterprises, due to a Photovoltaic power is generated by the direct
number of factors. These factors are not necessarily all conversion of light into electricity. Some materials
problems in SMME photovoltaic power system, but
addressing these factors will undoubtedly improve the
exhibit a property known as the photoelectric effect
efficiency, lifespan and return of investment of a PV that causes them to absorb photons of light and
power system. release electrons. When these free electrons are
captured, an electric current results that can be used
Index Terms — Internet of Things (IoT), hysteresis, as electricity [4].
photovoltaic. A number of individual PV cells are
interconnected together in a sealed, weather-proof
INTRODUCTION
package to form a module or panel. Modules can then
Conventionally generated electricity is no longer be interconnected in series and / or parallel to form a
seen as a long-term and cost-effective solution to solar array.
energy requirements. The current electricity situation
in South Africa has and is still busy forcing small, The main characteristics of monitoring systems
medium and micro-sized enterprises (SMMEs) to are categorised into the following [5] –
reconsider alternative electricity sources [1]. This is • Monitoring parameters,
not even taking into consideration the environmental • Sensors,
effects of the mining for fossil fuels and the • Controllers,
combustion thereof to generate electricity. • Data transfer mechanisms,
Initial costs for purchasing and installing • Program development software,
photovoltaic power (PV) systems are still very high • Monitoring method.
but are gradually becoming more cost competitive,
especially given the currently unstable situation Many current measurement techniques are
regarding conventional electricity in South Africa available. Seeing as current measurement will be in
[2]. Recent calculations has shown that residential- the form of an analog signal, it will be necessary to
sized photovoltaic systems were already a cost- perform analog to digital conversion at the output of
competitive alternative to other new-build options, the current measurement device. Current
even with finance fees included [3]. measurement can be based on the following methods
It is a matter of time before photovoltaic power [6] –
systems becomes an economically viable alternative • Ohm’s Law,
to conventional electricity for SMME’s. A • Faraday’s Law of Inductance,
comprehensive energy monitoring solution for • Magnetic Field Effect,
SMME photovoltaic power systems will assist in • Faraday Effect.
justifying the initial costs of a photovoltaic system, An integrated circuit based on the Hall Effect was
change consumer behavior, further reduce used in this project. The Hall Effect’s basic working
conventional electricity consumption and assist in principle states that when a current flows through a
the design of adequate PV systems for SMME’s in slab of semi-conductor or conductive material
the future. penetrated by a magnetic field, a voltage is induced
perpendicular to both current and magnetic flux
978-1-5386-2344-2/17/$31.00 density [5].
 Voltage measurements on a PV power APPROACH
monitoring system are equally important to current The power system is kept small as will merely be
measurements as it allows for monitoring of used to prove the concept of the energy monitoring
performance of the modules that make up the PV system. Voltage and current sensors between the PV
power system and is also the most accurate way to module and the charge controller will measure the
determine system outages [5]. power generated by the PV modules. Voltage and
DC voltage is measured by making use of a current sensors between then charge controller
simple voltage divider circuit, which brings the (charging function) and the batteries will measure the
voltage down to a measurable range. Signal power being stored to the battery. The charge
conditioning can be implemented to provide controller efficiency can also be calculated. A current
electrical impedance transformation from the voltage sensor between the battery and charge controller
divider circuit to the microcontroller, with the aim of (load function), in conjunction with the voltage
the signal source being unaffected by whatever sensor between the battery and the charge controller
currents that the load may produce [7]. (charge function) will measure the power being
drawn from the battery. Voltage and current sensors
A lot of the solar radiation absorbed by a PV between the charge controller (load function) and the
module is not converted to electrical energy but power inverter will measure the power being drawn
instead leads to increase of the temperature of the PV from the battery by the power inverter. Collected
module [5]. analog data will be processed and digitised by the
The band gap of the solar cells that make up a PV IOIO OTG controller. The digital data will be
module is reduced with an increase in temperature. transmitted to an Android smart phone where it will
The effects are an increase in short circuit current of be stored in a SQLite database. The Android smart
approximately 0.1% per °C and a decrease of phone will also function as a server and the stored
approximately 2 mV per °C [8]. data will be available to be accessed via the World
Module temperature is therefore an important Wide Web.
parameter to measure in order to predict the PV
system performance. The various methods of
measuring temperature are –
• Thermocouple [5],
• Resistance temperature detector (RTD)
[5],
• Thermistor [9],
• Silicone temperature sensors [10].

Data acquisition is performed by a controller that

is employed to collect data from a variety of sensors
before sending it to a central computer. The data
from the sensors are comprised of analog signals that
the controller then converts to digital data in order to
be sent to the central computer for storage, analysis
and presentation [5].

There are a number of databases available for use

on an Android based smart phone –
• SQLite Mobile Database,
• Sybase SQL Anywhere Database, Figure 1: System Design
• Oracle DBLite Database
• IBM DB2 Everyplace Database.

There are three main types of servers that can be

run on Android based smart phones. To run as a
server, the Android device needs to know the
protocols to share information. Each protocol is a set
of connection rules that all computers or applications
follow in order to connect to the server. The three
types are –
• Web server,
• File server,
• Media server.
 A. TEMPERATURE SENSING maximise the range of measurements which can be
The LM35 Precision Centigrade Temperature taken. The division of the signal will be
Sensor was chosen in a two wire remote sensor compensated for via software calculation.
configuration as the temperature measurement will
The highest voltage that can be produced by the
not be done at the location of the circuit itself.
PV module whilst connected to the PV power
Twisted pair wiring was used to connect the system is 18V. Taking into account that the
remote temperature sensor to the circuit. Twisted microprocessor can only handle a maximum of 3.3V
pair is wiring in which two conductors of a single at its analog input ports, it is obvious that the
circuit are twisted together for the purposes of measurement must be divided to be able to take
cancelling out electromagnetic interference from readings across the PV module entire voltage
external sources. spectrum.

Figure 3: Voltage Sensing Circuit

C. CURRENT SENSING

For current sensing, the ACS712 Hall-effect

based current sensing IC was chosen, The IC is
available in a pre-manufactured module, which was
procured for this project.

Figure 2: Temperature Sensing Circuit

Figure 4: Current Sensing Module

B. VOLTAGE SENSING

A voltage sensor simply receives a voltage signal

as an input and then provides output as an analog
voltage signal. In the case of this project, the input
signals to the voltage sensors will be analog, as well
as the output signals to the microprocessor, therefore
a simple voltage divider circuit was chosen to
 Figure 5: Current Sensor Clamping Circuit

The circuit depicted in Figure 5 will is what

connects the current sensing module to the
microprocessor.

D. SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Once the conditioned voltage signals reaches the

OTG IOIO, all further steps takes place via software
programming. Although the OTG IOIO bridge
board contains a microprocessor, all programming is
done on the Android based device only. The IOIO is Figure 6: Programme Algorithm
a development board designed to work with Android
phones through a USB connection. It abstracts the The programme was written in Java using
communication between external hardware and Android Studio, which is the official integrated
software running on the smartphone, enabling development environment (IDE) for the Android
Android applications to directly control hardware platform.
attached to the IOIO board as well as receive data
from sensors attached to the IOIO board [11]. E. INTEGRATION

Control programs are built using an IOIOlib The respective sub-circuits were incorporated into
library that knows the communication protocol one circuit design and PCB layout was then
between the program machine and the IOIO board. designed accordingly. The bare PCB was
Both sides of this communication must agree on the manufactured and all components were procured
protocol and payload of this communication. and soldered onto the bare PCB. T-blocks and
connectors were used in the design to ensure for easy
connecting and disconnecting of wires and modules
to and from the PCB assembly. The PV system
consisting of the PV module, charge controller,
battery and power inverter were mounted on a press-
wood board for easy transportation. The PV system
was wired up accordingly to ensure all was
functional. The PCB assembly along with its
modules and the Android device was also mounted
on the board and wired up. These components were
mounted within a plastic container for protection.
All voltage current and temperature sensors were
connected appropriately. The Java programming
was done and loaded to the Android device. PAW
Server for Android was downloaded from the
Google Play Store onto the Android device. PAW is
a true web server which allows hosting of webpages
on the Android device. The Android device was then
connected to the IOIO board which in turn was
plugged into to the PCB assembly. The system was
switched on and a load was connected to the power RESULTS
inverter.
The PV power system was found to be fully
functional and could be used as part of the project.
The PCB assembly was found to be fully
functional and could be used as part of the assembly.
The software was found to be functional with the
option of viewing live data or viewing a history of
all data saved.

Figure 9: Live Data

Figure 7: Circuit Diagram

CONCLUSION
This project proves that an energy monitoring
system can be manufactured at low-cost. The
monitoring system does necessarily have to be used
solely for PV power system monitoring but can be
adapted to perform any type of monitoring.

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