Web based solar panel monitoring/managment

Here is the power log for june 1st. I think I am going to change the angle back..  Not as consistent when the angle was at 40deg and the last 3 days have been very similar.

I changed the angle on the panels today.. went from 40deg to 55deg..

We had a lot of puffy clouds today. You can see as each one came over.

Another nice sunny day. Was at 15 watts or above  from noon till 5pm.  My 100 watt panels showed up today. Goto love Amzaon prime 2 day delivery... Will try to get a look at the panels this weekend but still lots of work in building mounts to get them online.

Here is the chart for today's output from my panels. I adjusted the tilt angle slightly went from 38deg to 40deg. today was a nice sunny day and it shows. As you can see noon to 4pm is my peak power time, but still getting some power from 7am until 7pm. Still not the rated 45 watts but getting better.

I split out the date/time to make for easier import to a spread sheet. This script queries the arduino every 5 minutes and collects current data. Runs out of cron.

#!/bin/bash

DAY=`date +%D`

TIME=` date +%T`

date=`date`

CMD=`curl -s 192.168.1.177 | grep Panel`

source=`echo $CMD | awk '{print $1}'`

volts=`echo $CMD | awk '{print $2}'`

amps=`echo $CMD | awk '{print $3}'`

watts=`echo $CMD | awk '{print $4}'`

echo "$DAY,$TIME,$source,$volts,$amps,$watts"

I split out the date/time to make for easier import to a spread sheet. This script queries the arduino every 5 minutes and collects current data. Runs out of cron.

#!/bin/bash

DAY=`date +%D`

TIME=` date +%T`

date=`date`

CMD=`curl -s 192.168.1.177 | grep Panel`

source=`echo $CMD | awk '{print $1}'`

volts=`echo $CMD | awk '{print $2}'`

amps=`echo $CMD | awk '{print $3}'`

watts=`echo $CMD | awk '{print $4}'`

echo "$DAY,$TIME,$source,$volts,$amps,$watts"

I have been doing my testing with the  harbor freight 45 watt solar panel system.  You can get the price down a bit with a coupon but even then its still   $3.25/watt.  Panels have dropped dramticly in the last couple of years.  I was able to get 2 100 watt panels for just under $1.40/watt. 2 panels ordered. With Amazon prime free shipping. Should be here in a couple of days. Now need to get a hole dug for the mounting pole. more to come.

Tracked power over the last couple of days. here is my voltage/amps/watts today, It was overcast with occasional rain.. Not getting peak power out of the cells but not bad for the panels just laying up against the AC unit. Was up to 13v by 6am but not munch in the way of power till 10am or so then peaking around 3pm. But some power from 7am till almost 8pm

I like the table view of the solar voltage and current but it was more of a pain to parse the output for automatic data collection so I update the output to just provide a single string output with the label, voltage, current and watts. I used a simple bash script and curl to pull the web data every 5 minutes and create a CSV file.

Web page view from arduino.

Bash Script......

#!/bin/bash

date=`date`

CMD=`curl -s 192.168.1.177 | grep Panel`

source=`echo $CMD | awk '{print $1}'`

volts=`echo $CMD | awk '{print $2}'`

amps=`echo $CMD | awk '{print $3}'`

watts=`echo $CMD | awk '{print $4}'`

echo "$date,$source,$volts,$amps,$watts"

crontab entry to pull the data and save it in a file

*/5 * * * * /home/gary/getpower.sh >> /home/gary/solarout.csv

I wanted to see how the hardware and code worked connected to something other than the bench supply I had been testing on.  I put the arduino, network and proto shield into a cheap plastic case. $1.99 for 10 small "project" cases from the local grocery store.

I connected the arduino between the solar panels and the charger controller to get a reading from the panels.