Design and Implementation of an Autonomous Passive Infrared and Real-Time Clock-Controlled Off-Grid Photovoltaic Street Lighting System

Fasda Ilhaq Robbani, Anggit Thariq Muhlis

Abstract

Conventional public street lighting (PSL) operates continuously at full intensity, regardless of surrounding activity, wasting energy and relying fully on the grid. This study designed and tested an autonomous off-grid photovoltaic (PV) PSL prototype of 100 Watt-peak (Wp) integrated with a Passive Infrared (PIR) HC-SR501 motion sensor and a Real-Time Clock (RTC) DS3231 module to apply two-level lighting during 17:00 to 05:00 Western Indonesian Time (WIB). The PIR sensor reliably detected objects up to 350 cm (100 percent success), but not at 400 cm or 450 cm, indicating an effective detection range well below its 7 m nominal rating rather than a lamp-actuation fault. The RTC consistently matched lamp transitions to the 17:00 and 05:00 schedule over three days of observation. The system load was 210.07 Wh per day, 28.03 percent lower than conventional always-on operation (291.87 Wh per day), while the PV array produced 255.50 Wh per day (Peak Sun Hours (PSH) 3.65 h, 70 percent efficiency), giving a 45.43 Wh per day (21.63 percent) reserve and 82.22 percent utilization efficiency. The 12 V 12 Ah Valve-Regulated Lead-Acid (VRLA) battery yielded an autonomy day of only 0.55 day (approximately 13.2 h), barely above one night and far below common off-grid design practice (2 to 3 days), so increasing battery capacity to about 22 to 44 Ah is recommended. Motion-sensing and time-based scheduling together deliver a meaningful efficiency gain, although the storage capacity still needs to be enlarged for reliability during consecutive poor-weather days.

Keywords

Arduino Uno; energy efficiency; off-grid photovoltaic system; PIR sensor; public street lighting; RTC DS3231.

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References

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.20961/jeeict.8.2.127581

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