Improving the Performance of Solar Panels by Automated Water Cooling System and IoT

There has been an increasing trend of using solar and other renewable sources of energy for generating electrical power for domestic and industrial applications. With regards to solar energy harvesting, research shows that high temperature of the solar panel surface and presence of dust on it decreases the power output, and reduces its efficiency. Therefore, a cleaning and cooling system is expected to enhance the overall performance of the system. This paper presents an automated and cost-saving water flow-based solar panel cooling system which harvests more electrical power due to its cooling mechanism, as well as run its cooling system using a part of the harvested energy. The complete system can be monitored and controlled remotely through the Internet using an IoT device and a mobile application. Experimental results show that on a typical day, the developed system gives approximately 30% more output power due to the cooling mechanism.