Internet of things-based photovoltaics parameter monitoring system using NodeMCU ESP8266

Abstract

The use of the internet of things (IoT) in solar photovoltaic (PV) systems is a critical feature for remote monitoring, supervising, and performance evaluation. Furthermore, it improves the long-term viability, consistency, efficiency, and system maintenance of energy production. However, previous researchers' proposed PV monitoring systems are relatively complex and expensive. Furthermore, the existing systems do not have any backup data, which means that the acquired data could be lost if the network connection fails. This paper presents a simple and low-cost IoT-based PV parameter monitoring system, with additional backup data stored on a microSD card. A NodeMCU ESP8266 development board is chosen as the main controller because it is a system-on-chip (SOC) microcontroller with integrated Wi-Fi and low-power support, all in one chip to reduce the cost of the proposed system. The solar irradiance, ambient temperature, PV output voltage and PV output current, are measured with photo-diodes, DHT22, impedance dividers and ACS712. While, the PV output power is a product of the PV voltage and PV current. ThingSpeak, an open-source software, is used as a cloud database and data monitoring tool in the form of interactive graphics. The results showed that the system was designed to be highly accurate, reliable, simple to use, and low-cost.