Web based Measurement System for Solar Radiation

We present in this paper, the principles of the measurement system for solar radiation, and our implementation using Web based data logging concept. The photocurrent produced by Silicon PN junction is used as a solar radiation transducer, to make it more viable we have used commercially available solar panels as our transducers. Using a silicon solar cell as sensor, a low cost solar radiometer can be constructed. The photocurrent produced by solar cell is electronically tailored to be measured and stored by our web based data acquisition and monitoring system. Measurement using real solar cell array gives a good measure of actual producible energy by solar arrays. Our portable instrument can be used in remote sites and substitutes the solar monitor and integrator, Current data of solar radiation can be monitored using Ethernet interface available in all PC, Laptops. We store the data into a secure digital card which can be retrieved to plot and analyse the data. We have developed system hardware and software based on ATmega32 AVR Microcontrollers and ENC28J60 Ethernet PHY and MAC network interface chip by Microchip. So the global irradiance data are obtained after correction using the instantaneous measurement of ambient temperature which allows us to calculate the junction temperature and consequently improve the precision of measurement of our data acquisition system.