Solar Panel Efficiency Tester

More on Solar Panel and test system Information

For more information on Solar Panel goto :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_system

For Project developement and intergration goto :
http://www.mtl-system.com/

Software Screen Shots

Parameters setting for the software. Setting Irradiance to 50 watts per m square. And the area to be 0.7 m square.
Temperature and angulation is not set at this moment.

Resultant efficiency is at around 4.4 %. Suggest to test outside to use the actual sunlight to have even sunlight exposure on the solar panel. Result might be better.
Typical efficiency for the Solar panel range around 11%.

* Efficiency of Solar Panel = Max Power (Watt) / (Area (m2) x Irradiance (Watt/m2))

Connection to the Solar Panel

We connect the Solar Panel directly to the System. As we found out that the Solar Panel charger controller drop the voltage to around 12 V (suitable for charging the battery). The Solar Panel is capable of outputting a voltage of 16V so by passing the charger controller we get the actual voltage from the Solar Panel.

Irradiance Meter

The Irradiance meter was use to measure the Light source or Sunlight in Watt per meter square.

Due to the fact that the halogen light source is not distributed evenly on the Solar panel. Several readings have been taken on the Solar panel on the individual cells (total 4 x 9 ) = 36 readings.

Average value is set at around at 50 Watt per meter square .