Automated Solar Powered Pumping Systems For Irrigation

International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics
Volume 114 No. 7 2017, 507-516

ISSN: 1311-8080 (printed version); ISSN: 1314-3395 (on-line version)
url: http://www.ijpam.eu
Special Issue
ijpam.eu
Automated solar powered pumping systems for

irrigation
E.Annie Grace, A.Sahaya Pon Rekha, M.Thenarasi
Faculty of Engineering and Technology,
SRM University,Kattankulathur
anniegrace.e@ktr.srmuniv.ac.in,sahayaponrekha.a@ktr.sr
muniv.ac.in,thenarasi.m@ktr.srmuniv.ac.in
Abstract
The solar PV panels have proven through a period of
time that they are unfailing to produce adequate
electricity directly from solar radiation. The demand for
water in any irrigation system varies throughout the
complete year in any particular area. This paper proposes
the use of solar power for irrigation purposes. Solar
powered water pumping systems can be the most perfect
and suitable solution for rural locations which are grid
isolated in poor countries where the amount of solar
radiation are very high. Solar powered water pumping
systems (SPPS) can be used to supply to basic needs of
the community like providing drinking water, water for
irrigation etc. without the need for any kind of fuel or
wide-ranging maintenance.
Keywords— solar energy, water pump, time slots
1. Introduction
From olden days we are using conventional sources of energy
in large amount for our basic needs. As non-renewable minerals like
coal are exhausting, we have to depend on the non conventional
sources of energy like solar, wind, tidal etc. For any smaller
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International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics Special Issue
application it is better to use renewable energy. Now a days,

renewable energy has many day to day applications. India is a country
in which the major income is from farming sector. So, an effort has
been put to use solar energy in irrigation systems. Most of the existing
renewable system is manual. The manual system needs far-reaching
labour for continuously monitoring the yield and health crop. Taking
into account labour’s salary, the manual system will cost more than
the automatic system, in which there is no assistance to the system.
The farmer himself has to continuously check whether the moisture
level of the soil is maintained and has to make a conclusion whether
the field requires sufficient water or not. This way of inspecting the
moisture level is not precise all the times and this negative aspect can
be eliminated by using soil moisture sensor. Moreover, the
temperature essential for the crops to nurture will diverge for a range
of crops. If the temperature increases or decreases than the expected
temperature, it may have an effect on the quality of the crops. This
problem can be overcome by using the shielding mechanism, which
maintains the looked-for temperature.
This paper is organized as follows. Section II explains about

the solar powered systems. Section III deals with the concept of
implementing the solar power in irrigation systems. Section IV deals
with the hardware implementation of the proposed system.
Conclusions are given in section V.
2. Concept of solar powered systems

Solar powered systems are supreme for regular usage in many
developing countries rather than any other forms of non conventional
energy because they are very durable and has long-term economic
profits . Solar water pumps are used mainly in very small scale or any
community based irrigation fields. Large scale irrigation requires
excessive amount of water for irrigation which results in a extremely
large size solar PV array. But during rainy season, we do not
necessarily require a large PV array. This leads to wastage of excess
energy and makes the system less efficient. Solar PV water pumping
systems are mainly used for irrigation and drinking water purposes in
India. Larger SPPS (Solar powered pumping systems) can deliver
around 140,000lts of water/day from a total head of 10 meters. A
large-scale SPPS can serve well over 250 people at any instant of
time.
The main power source is the solar panel which provides energy to
charge a battery. A separate circuit is also added to control the
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charging as well as the current transmission constant. In the proposed

system, when the battery is charged long enough, it drives the water
pump, i.e. the load, for a proper timing. As it can be clearly seen from
the block diagram that the load is connected to a relay in between the
charging unit and relay which actually drives the load.
There is one additional feature in the setup. A RTC (Real time

Clock)is been interfaced to the microcontroller .The ON/OFF time of
the water pump is controlled by the timing that we set in this feauture.
In this way the solar energy can be harnessed very resourcefully. The
block diagram for the solar powered system is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Block Diagram for the solar powered system
3.Implementation of solar powered

pumps
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For the simulation of designs and for the PCB layout project design,
Schematic capture in the Proteus Design Suite is used . It is actually a
core component and it is included with all the product configurations.
Figure 2 shows the schematic model of the solar powered systems.
Figure 2: Schematic software model of the solar powered system
RTC (DS1307) is interfaced with ARDUINO. The RTC provides the

PIC with 7 inputs namely: seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks,
months and Years. The RTC gives those values in BCD so that it can
be displayed on the LCD easily. The ARDUINO will convert these
values into decimal and compare it with the time that has been given
as input using the keypad. The ARDUINO will check if the RTC time
is equal to the input time entered by the user. If so, the PIC sends a
signal to the relay, which closes the circuit to the motor. This will
essentially make the motor to run.
4.Hardware Implementation
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Arduino uno, LCD, RTC, Keypad, Relay, LED, Crystal, Diodes,

Regulator, Capacitors, Resistors, motor, Solar panel, Op-amps,
MOSFET, Potentiometers, Battery.
 The Arduino Uno:
The Arduino project provides the Arduino integrated development

environment (IDE), which is a cross-platform application and it is
written in the programming language Java. It is sourced from IDE for
the languages Processing and Wiring. It has a code editor with various
features like to cut the text and to paste, to search and to replace text,
for automatic indent, matching of braces, and highlighting of syntax.
Compile and upload programs are done by a simple one-click
mechanism and given to an Arduino board. It also contains a message
area, a text console, a toolbar with buttons for common functions and
a hierarchy of operation menus.
Figure 3: Front and rear view of the Arduino board
Arduino/Genuino Uno is a microcontroller board based on the

ATmega328P (datasheet). It has 14 digital input/output pins (of which
6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, a 16 MHz quartz
crystal, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header and a reset
button. Figure 3 shows the front and rear view of the Arduino board.
 Solar Panel
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A photovoltaic system typically has a package which contains an

array of photovoltaic modules, an inverter along with a battery pack
for storage, interconnection wiring. The solar tracking mechanism is
optional and it can be included in the package if high accuracy is
expected. The size of the PV panel is dependent on the size of the
pump that we choose for irrigation purpose. Larger the pump size,
larger the solar panel will become.
Open circuit voltage (Voc) 10.1V

Maximum system Voltage 1000V
(Vdc)
Peak Power (P) 3W
Short circuit current (Isc) 0.48A
Table 1: Solar panel Specifications
Figure 4 shows the solar panel used for the powering of irrigation
systems.Positioning of these solar panels are very important since they
contribute to a continuous powering system.
Figure 4 :Solar panel used for the powering of irrigation systems
 Keypad
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Keypads are fundamentally a part of Human Machine Interface (HMI)

. It plays a key role in a small embedded system where human
communication and human input is required. They are well known for
its simple architecture. Figure 5 shows the hardware implementation
of the keypad.
Figure 5 : Hardware Implementation of the keypad
 RTC
DS1307 is a low cost, easy to handle, real-time clock chip . it works

for many years on a very small coin cell. It has a power-sense circuit
built inside to identify power failures. In case of any power failure, it
automatically switches to the backup supply. Even when the part
operates from the backup supply, the time operation will continue. A
3V coin cell (lithium battery)must be installed for the RTC to work. If
there is no coin cell, the battery pin (VBAT) should be pulled to low.
 Relay module:
Relay is an electrical switch that uses an electromagnet to

automatically move the switch from the OFF position to the ON
position instead of a person manually moving the switch.Figure 6
shows the hardware setup of the relay module.
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Figure 6 : Hardware setup of the relay module.
 Pump:
If the size of the pump that we use for the irrigation increases, it will
also increase the size of the PV array that we use in the system. So to
justify the role of solar power in pumping, a small power rating pump
has been used in the setup. In large scale, the chemical injection
pumps emits raw gas into the atmosphere. The use of solar powered
pump can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions. Figure 7 shows the
miniature pump used for the proposed small scale irrigation model.
Figure 7: Pump used for the hardware model
5. Conclusion
It can be concluded that whenever the electricity is scarce,
Photovoltaic systems can be made used in an efficient way to provide
water and irrigation in those areas . Their main advantages over hand
pumps are their basically zero maintenance and long valuable life, no
fuel necessity, no blemishes, and relatively easier installation. Thus
when we compare with pumping systems powered with diesel, the
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cost was found to be 64.2% in case of solar PV pumping system for

period of 10years. Solar pumps are available to pump from anywhere
in the range of up to 200m head and the output may range upto
250m³/day. At least 260 billion lit/year of diesel can be saved if 9 to
70 million solar PV powering pump sets are used. The Peak demand is
roughly twice the average demand throughout the sunny seasons. Thus
this shows that the solar pumps used for irrigation stay under-utilized
for most of the year. The selected irrigation system should be in such a
way that it minimizes the water losses without putting any further
pressure on the water head.
References
1] Vick B.D. and Clark R.N., Effect of panel temperature on a
solar-PV AC water pumping system. ASES Solar 2004: A Solar
Harvest Growing Opportunities. July 11-14, 2015. Portland.
2] Van Dyk E.E., Gxasheka A.R. and Meyer E.L.,

Monitoringcurrent voltage characteristics and energyoutput of
silicon photovoltaic modules. Renewable Energy, Vol. 30, pp.
399- 411, 2015.
3] Hammad M.A., Characteristics of solar water pumping in

Jordan. Energy, Vol. 24, pp. 85-92, 1999. pp.341-346, 2014.
4] Khatib T., Design of photovoltaic water pumping system at

minimum cost for Palestine: a review. Journal of applied
sciences, Vol.10(22), pp. 2773-2784, 2010.
5] Meah K., Ula S. and Barrett S., Solar photovoltaic water

pumping: opportunities and challenges. Renewable
andSustainable Energy Reviews, Vol.12, pp. 1162-1175, 2008.
6] Ghoneim A.A., Design optimization of photovoltaic powered

water pumping systems. Energy Conversion and Management,
Vol. 47, pp 1449-1463, 2006.
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International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics

Volume 114 No. 7 2017, 507-516

Automated solar powered pumping systems for

application it is better to use renewable energy. Now a days,

This paper is organized as follows. Section II explains about

2. Concept of solar powered systems

charging as well as the current transmission constant. In the proposed

There is one additional feature in the setup. A RTC (Real time

Figure 1: Block Diagram for the solar powered system

3.Implementation of solar powered

Figure 2: Schematic software model of the solar powered system

RTC (DS1307) is interfaced with ARDUINO. The RTC provides the

Arduino uno, LCD, RTC, Keypad, Relay, LED, Crystal, Diodes,

 The Arduino Uno:

The Arduino project provides the Arduino integrated development

Figure 3: Front and rear view of the Arduino board

Arduino/Genuino Uno is a microcontroller board based on the

A photovoltaic system typically has a package which contains an

Open circuit voltage (Voc) 10.1V

Table 1: Solar panel Specifications

Figure 4 :Solar panel used for the powering of irrigation systems

Keypads are fundamentally a part of Human Machine Interface (HMI)

Figure 5 : Hardware Implementation of the keypad

DS1307 is a low cost, easy to handle, real-time clock chip . it works

Relay is an electrical switch that uses an electromagnet to

Figure 6 : Hardware setup of the relay module.

Figure 7: Pump used for the hardware model

cost was found to be 64.2% in case of solar PV pumping system for

2] Van Dyk E.E., Gxasheka A.R. and Meyer E.L.,

3] Hammad M.A., Characteristics of solar water pumping in

4] Khatib T., Design of photovoltaic water pumping system at

5] Meah K., Ula S. and Barrett S., Solar photovoltaic water

6] Ghoneim A.A., Design optimization of photovoltaic powered

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