Experimental technology assessment of active solar-tracker control strategies: CPV yield penalties, actuator demand, and net-energy trade-offs

Active solar tracking systems for concentrating solar applications are commonly optimized according to angular accuracy; however, this criterion alone does not guarantee improved net energy performance. Controller-induced actuator demand, auxiliary electrical consumption, and optical yield penalties can offset the benefits of precise tracking, especially in high-concentration systems with narrow acceptance angles. This study presents an experimental technology-assessment framework for comparing classical active solar-tracking control strategies from a multi-objective perspective. Conventional on-off, deadband, hysteresis, proportional-integral, and proportional–integral–derivative configurations were tested on a high-precision dual-axis solar tracker using identical sinusoidal and square reference trajectories, with an injected feedback uncertainty of ± 0.3 ° . The controllers were assessed using tracking accuracy, maximum tracking error, total variation of control, actuator current demand, and estimated concentrator photovoltaic energy-yield penalties obtained from acceptance-angle curves. Results show that deadband strategies can reduce control effort by up to 92.6%, but excessive tolerance can increase optical energy losses by up to 11.2%. Proportional-integral control provided the most balanced response, maintaining moderate penalties on electrical demand and concentrator photovoltaic yield below 4.05%. In contrast, derivative-heavy proportional–integral–derivative configurations amplified feedback uncertainty, increasing control effort by more than 1100% and auxiliary electrical demand by more than 2100% without any meaningful improvement in tracking. These findings demonstrate that active solar-tracker controllers should be selected based on net-energy and reliability assessments rather than on angular accuracy alone.