International Conference on Renewable Energy Research and Applications Madrid, Spain, 20-23 October 2013

Photovoltaic Systems with Solar Tracking Mirrors

Jun Hu Toshiaki Yachi
Graduate School of Engineering Graduate School of Engineering
Tokyo University of Science Tokyo University of Science
Tokyo, Japan Tokyo, Japan
j4312624@ed.tus.ac.jp yachi@rs.kagu.tus.ac.jp

Abstract—This paper presents a novel photovoltaic (PV) system
that has a one-axis tracking function. This PV system utilizes
cheap mirrors, rather than multiple solar cells, to reduce the
power generation cost. Based on the principle of mirror reflection
that is used to increase illumination on the surface of a solar
panel, the system structure is discussed. After analyzing the
continuously changing positions of the Sun, a solar tracking
program is proposed to drive the mirror panels. The tracking
program maximizes the amount of illumination reflected from
the mirrors onto the surface of a solar panel. The power
generation characteristics of the proposed system were evaluated
by a simulation. The test data for four seasons show that the
annual average power generation of this system is approximately
1.7 times higher than a system with the same solar panel area but
without mirrors.
Keywords-photovoltaic systems; solar tracking; mirror;
illumination
completed for the day (or after sunset), the mirror panels return
to their initial position for the next day.
The effective incident bandwidth (D) changes greatly
according to the ratio of the mirror width (HM) to the solar
panel width (HC). Therefore, having an appropriate HM/HC ratio
is an important aspect of the structure of this system.
However, changes in solar elevation angle cause problems
with proportionality, such that a portion of reflected light
misses the solar panel. To minimize this mismatch, an
appropriate ratio (aspect ratio) of the length (L) to the width
(HC) of the solar panel is also required. Determining an
appropriate aspect ratio to ensure that the reflected light is just
within the edge of the solar panel is a challenge for high-
precision tracking control.
Area of reflected light
Sunl
ight

I. INTRODUCTION H
M
HC
r
In recent years, worldwide awareness of serious r ro
environmental problems has been growing. Therefore,
Mi

l
Cel
renewable energy sources such as solar power are becoming

ar
more widely available. L
Sol
We propose a renewable solar power system with a single-
axis tracking function based on the reflection of mirrors. This
system is different from previous solar power generation Sun
light
systems that use a one-axis solar tracker [1] or fixed mirrors
[2]–[3]. In this study, moving mirrors are used to track the
illumination changes of the sun, which maximizes the amount Area of no reflected light
of reflection from the mirrors in the proposed system and
increases the amount of the overall power generation. Figure 1. Structure of the proposed PV system with solar tracking mirrors
and the path of sunlight.
II. SYSTEM MODEL AND TRACKING METHOD
B. HM/HC ratio
A. Overall structure of the system model
As shown in Fig. 2 (left panel), the known conditions are ș1
As shown in Fig. 1, a photovoltaic (PV) system with solar = ș2 = ș3 = șM – 90° (90° <șM <135°) at noon, and the solar
tracking mirrors is a structure in which mirrors are placed on elevation angle in the latitudinal direction, șLat, is 90°. The
the east and west sides of a south-facing solar panel. To dimensions are defined as follows.
maximize illumination of the solar panel surface, the mirror
panels are rotated according to the constantly changing solar AC= HM×cosș3 = BC× cot (ș2+ș3)
angle. In this system, at the beginning of each day, the first = (CO+OB) ×cot [2× (șM – 90°)] (1)
angle of the west mirror panel is 60° and the first angle of the
east mirror panel is 0°. At the end of each day, the final angle Equation (1) can be simplified as
of the west mirror panel is 180° and the final angle of the east HM/ HC = [2(cosșM) 2 – 1]/ cosșM.
mirror panel is 120°. It is assumed that the east side of the The following should be noted:
horizontal line is 0° and the west side is 180°. After tracking is
Before noon: D = HM ×sin (șM –șLat);

978-1-4799-1464-7/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE

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International Conference on Renewable Energy Research and Applications Madrid, Spain, 20-23 October 2013

After noon: D = HM ×sin (180° – șM –șLat);

Midday: D = HM × (-cosșM).
As shown in Fig. 3, although the effective incident
bandwidth D increases as the HM/HC ratio increases, the return
value of D, represented by a red line, peaks at a HM/HC ratio of
0.83 to 2.24. Therefore, in accordance with the overall
efficiency, the HM/HC ratio in this paper is set to 1.
Op

Figure 4. Solar trajectory and analysis of the solar elevation angle.

HM

tim
al

D. Tracking method
MH

1) Analysis of the tracking angle

Figure 2. Path of light at midday and the path of effective incident light. As shown in Fig. 5, due to seasonal changes, the solar
elevation angle and the azimuth angle change daily. The
position angle of the Sun relative to the Earth at any point in
time was analyzed. In the figure, point O is the origin of this
system, ș is the solar elevation angle, Į is the azimuth angle,
șLat is the solar elevation angle in the latitudinal direction, and
șLng is the solar elevation angle in the longitudinal direction.
While disregarding sunshine duration, the value of șLat has a
total change of 180 degrees in one day. As a result, the tracking
speed of the mirror panel changes in response to seasonal
changes.

W
S
Figure 3. Changes in the effective incident bandwith (blue line) and return LJ Lat
values of that relative to the HM/HC ratio (red line).

Winter LJ
C. Aspect ratio of the solar panel Solstice Į O
LJ Lng
As shown in Fig. 1, changes in the solar elevation angle
cause the mirror reflection to be vertically mismatched. By Spring or Autumnal N
using the calculations of the light-receiving areas, the following Equinox E
equation shows the mismatch ratio of the reflection: Summer
Solstice
ȘOUT = SNR/SC = (HC2×tanȕ)/(2×HC×L)
Figure 5. Solar trajectory and analysis of the solar elevation angle.
= (HC /L) × (tanȕ/2) (2)
In (2), SNR is the area of no reflected light on the solar panel, 2) Driving scheme of the stepping motor
SC is the area of the solar panel, and ȕ is the angle between the
plane of incident light and the vertical plane of the solar panel. From the abovementioned description of the overall
Through analysis of the solar elevation angle, we know that ȕ = structure of the system model in section II.A, we know that the
|90° – 35° –șLng| = |55° –șLng|, and the solar elevation angle in total range of the mirror panel rotation in the system with a
the longitudinal direction, șLng, is in the range of 0° to 90°. HM/HC ratio of 1 is 120°. Therefore, the following relational
Because tanȕ is constant at each time point, we know from (2)
expression was obtained.
that ȘOUT decreases as the L/HC ratio increases. Fig. 4 shows
the relationship between the mismatch ratio, OUT, and the aspect șM = 60° +2 ×șLat / 3
ratio. If the aspect ratio is set to 5, it is possible to maintain a
mismatch that is less than 5% throughout the year.

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International Conference on Renewable Energy Research and Applications Madrid, Spain, 20-23 October 2013

Here, the initial angle is 60°.

If the change in the solar elevation angle in the latitudinal
direction per one hour is ǻșLat, the following expression is
obtained: ǻșM=2×ǻșLat /3, where ǻșM is the change in the
rotational angle of the mirror panels per hour.
In the case of a sunny day, illumination is strongest around
noon. After analyzing the results of the simulation to maximize
the overall system illumination, we determined the tracking
control scheme of the system. The control period was divided
into three sections: morning, around noon, and afternoon.

III. SIMULATION METHODS AND POWER Figure 6. Diurnal illumination of the systems and mirrors during the vernal
equinox day.
PRODUCTION CALCULATION
In the simulation experiments, the non-uniformity of the
light reflected from the mirrors was not taken into account. The
amount of illumination was assumed to be the total amount of
direct light on the solar panel surface and the light reflected
from the mirrors. In addition, the reflection mismatch at the
junctions between the mirror panels and solar panels was
neglected. The Software METPV-11 was used to obtain the
illumination data in the simulation. The simulation conditions
and the system specifications are shown in Table I.

TABLE I
SYSTEM MODEL AND SIMULATION CONDITIONS
Items Specifications Figure 7. Diurnal illumination of the systems and mirrors during the summer
solstice day.
Size of the solar panel 0.2 m × 1 m
Size of the mirrors 0.2 m × 1 m
Conversion efficiency of the ȘC = 16.5%
solar panel
Reflectivity of the mirrors ȘM = 90%
Installation angle 35 degrees
(tilt angle)
Installation location Tokyo (35°41ƍ N, 139°41ƍ E)

To calculate the amount of power generation (P) of the PV

systems with solar tracking mirrors, it is necessary to calculate
the effective light-receiving area (SM) of the light reflected on
the solar panels for all periods. The amount of illumination (I) Figure 8. Diurnal illumination of the systems and mirrors during the
during all time periods is provided by METPV-11. Therefore, autumnal equinox day.
the amount of power generation at any given time can be
expressed by (3).
P = I×(SM×ȘM+SC) ×ȘCDŽ (3)

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

As results of the simulations, the amount of illumination
during the vernal equinox day, summer solstice day, autumnal
equinox day and the winter solstice day for the conventional
one-cell and three-cell systems, our proposed system, and the
left and right mirrors of our proposed system are shown in
Figs. 6, 7, 8, and 9. In the morning and evening, the reflection
of the mirrors is higher than the amount of incident sunlight the
solar panel receives. During the daytime, the amount of Figure 9. Diurnal illumination of the systems and mirrors during the winter
reflection is almost constant. solstice day.

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Fig. 10 shows the monthly average values of the global was 35°C throughout the day. The experimental conditions
solar radiation in Tokyo, Japan. In this paper, the months of and the system specifications are shown in Table II.
March, April, and May are classified as spring; the months of
June, July, and August are classified as summer; the months of TABLE II
September, October, and November are classified as fall; and SYSTEM MODEL AND EXPERIMENTAL CONDITIONS
the months of December, January, and February are classified
Items Specifications
as winter.
Size of the solar panel 210.5 mm ×49.5 mm
Size of the mirrors 210.5 mm ×49.5 mm
Conversion efficiency of the solar ȘC = 12.5%
(Denryo Company)
panel
Reflectivity of the mirrors ȘM = 90%
Installation angle 35 degrees
(tilt angle)
Installation location Tokyo (35°41ƍ N, 139°41ƍ E)

The experimental results are shown in Fig. 12. Throughout

the output current observations, the output of our system was
about 1.4 times more than that of the one-cell system without
Figure 10. Monthly average values of the global solar radiation in Tokyo, mirrors.
Japan.

Fig. 11 shows the amount of daytime power generation for

each system during each season. The effect of the proposed
system throughout the year differs significantly. The proposed
system has the best power generation efficiency in summer.
The proposed system attains a power generation that is 65% of
that of the three-cell system. However, because of the lower
solar elevation angle and shorter illumination time in winter,
the effect is lowest at 50%. This effect during spring and
autumn is approximately 59%. It was calculated that the
amount of average annual power generation in our system is
approximately 59% of the amount of power generation in a
system that has solar panels with the same light-receiving area.
As one advantage of this system, the cost of mirrors is cheaper Figure 12. Output power of the two systems in one day's experiment.
than that of the solar cells.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Funding for this research was provided in part by Grant-in-
Aid for Scientific Research (C) (23560340) from the Ministry
of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology
(MEXT), Japan.

REFERENCES
[1] Tiberiu Tudorache, Liviu Kreindler, “Design of a Solar Tracker
System for PV Power Plants”, Acta Polytechnica Hungarica Vol. 7,
No. 1, 2010.
[2] R. Rahman and M. F. Khan, "Performance enhancement of PV Solar
System by mirror reflection," in Electrical and Computer Engineering
(ICECE), 2010, p. 163.
[3] L.M. Fraas and L. Minkin, "Lower cost 3-SUN mirror module
Figure 11. Power generation of the three systems per hour during each season. designs for rooftop sun tracking," in 34th Photovoltaic Specialists
Conference (PVSC), 2009, p. 1179.

V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
A comparison test was performed outdoors in Tokyo,
Japan, from 09:00 to 18:30 (sunset) on 11 August. The highest
elevation of the Sun at noon was approximately 69.6°. The
weather was clear until 14:00, and the average temperature

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