Automatic Solar Submersible Pump Control for Irrigation

In recent days, agriculture field farmers are facing many problems in watering their plants to keep their crops green in summer season. It’s because they don’t have correct idea about the availability of the power. Even if the power is available, they have to wait until the pitch is properly watered. Thus this process restricts them to stop doing other deeds. But, there is a solution, i.e., automatic solar submersible pump control panel for irrigation. In the trial of solar based plant irrigation using submersible pumps, PV cells are used to generate electricity, which is stored in rechargeable batteries. These batteries produce power for the system operation. A submersible pump controller is used to pump a water from a boor well to a storage water tank. Then, the water is drawn by a submersible pump at the slope’s toe, where the installed sprinklers water the crops or plants.

Automatic Solar Submersible Pump Control for Irrigation

These systems work in the sunlight. When sun shines the water pumping process is a sensible way of solar electric power utilization throughout the summer, as the water necessity is the highest. These pumps  provide a reliable water source for plantation. For any solar based pumping system, the capacity to drive water is a function of three variable such as power, flow and pressure. The following main components are used in this automatic solar submersible pump control panel for irrigation

Solar Panel

These panels are designed with solar cells composed of semiconductor materials. The main function of Solar panels is to convert solar energy into DC electrical energy generally of 12V, which is further used for the rest of the circuit. The number of cells required and their size depends on the rating of the load. The collection of solar cells can produce maximum electricity.But, the solar panel must  place exactly at right angles to the sun rays.

The Source

Water sources are available in the form of springs, drilled wells, rivers, ponds, etc.

The Submersible Pump

This solar system contains a submersible pump, a water tank, an irrigation pump, associated water pumps. In the site  trial, the submersible pump is kept in a stainless steel case, which is placed in a well pit at the junction of the open channel and the natural stream course. The pump controller  pumps water to the water tank at a particular time period as set in the control unit. This system is designed with 450W of power, which is capable of pumping 2000 liters of water within 60 minutes. This power capacity takes into account  the height difference between the water tank and the solar  submersible pump.

The PV Panels

The photo voltaic cells  depend on the size of the pump. A panel is esteemed in watts of power it can produce. This solar submersible pumping system should be operated with a PV array of capacity in the range of 200 to 500 watts peak, and measured under some standard test conditions. A plenty of modules in series & parallel could be used to get the necessary PV power array power o/p. The o/p power of the PV modules which are used in the PV array under standard test conditions should be a min of 74 watts peak.

Charge Controller

A solar charge controller is very important device in any solar-power system. It is used to maintain proper charging voltages of the batteries. The charge controller controls current and voltage from the solar panel and charges the battery, and also stops the charging of the battery from over and undercharging conditions.

Battery

The Battery is an electric device, that is used to store current which is produced from the solar panel and supplied to the corresponding loads. The number of batteries required depend on the load requirement.

Inverter

The main function of the inverter is that it converts the battery’s  voltage to AC voltage in order to activate then loads. Therefore, it helps us to run many electronic devices, home appliances and computers. There are numerous types of inverters available in the market today.The characteristics of typical inverters include high switching frequency, high conversion frequency and less harmonic content, and so on.

An example project for the above automatic water pump controller plant irrigation system with is Solar Powered Auto Irrigation System. The description of this project is described below.

Solar Powered Auto Irrigation System

The main goal of this project is to develop an irrigation system in the field of agriculture by using Solar Energy and it has many advantages

The required components are 8051 series Microcontroller, 12V DC mini submersible pump,  Op-Amp, LCD, Solar Panel, MOSFET, Relay, Motor, Voltage Regulator, Diodes, Capacitors, Resistors, LED, Crystal and Transistors

The power supply comprises of a step-down transformer, bridge rectifier, voltage regulator. Wherein the step-down transformer steps down the voltage to 12 volts AC, and a bridge rectifier converts AC to DC, then a voltage regulator regulates the voltage to 5V which is used for the microcontroller operation.

In this Solar Powered Auto Irrigation System project, we use solar energy to activate the irrigation pump. The above block diagram is comprised of sensor parts, which are assembled using op-amp IC(operational amplifier IC). Op-amp’s are designed here as a comparator. Two copper wires are injected into the soil to sense the condition of the soil, whether it is wet or dry.

A microcontroller in this project is used to control the whole system by observing the sensors. When the sensors sense the soil condition as dry, then the comparator sends the command to the microcontroller, and also it sends instruction to the relay-driver IC then, it reminds the motor to pump water to the crops. Here comparator acts as an interface between the sensing arrangement and the  microcontroller The status of the soil and the water pump  is displayed on the  LCD which is interfaced to the microcontroller. In the same way,when the sensor senses the soil condition as wet, then the microcontroller sends instruction to the relay to switch off the motor.

Furthermore, this  project can be enhanced by interfacing it with a GSM modem to gain control over the motor switching operation.

This is all about solar powered irrigation system using a submersible pump, this pump gives a reliable water source for crops when water necessities are highest.We believe that you have got a better idea about this article.Furthermore any queries regarding this concept or electronics projects, you can approach us by commenting in the comment section below.