NoDustPV Project: Development and Testing of Anti-soiling Coatings

The soiling accumulation over the surfaces of photovoltaic (PV) and concentrated photovoltaics (CPV) modules decreases the annual energy production. In this work, an anti-soiling coating for PV glasses and lenses to avoid or decrease the soiling deposition onto PV and CPV modules is presented. Three different anti-soiling coatings are deposited over the surface of real lenses and glasses. The anti-soiling performance is tested by measuring the surface free energy of the uncoated and coated samples. The results show that the plasma treatment of the samples before anti-soiling application increases the performance of the coating. Regarding the effect of curing process, the results indicate that the curing process is not significant to increase the anti-soiling performance. Among the three formulations tested, F1 is the best one for glass material and F3 is the best one for poly methyl methacrylate (PMMA) lenses. In the near future, in order to detect any adverse effect in the light transmission in the long-term, the samples will be tested in the lab with accelerated aging tests to verify its durability and reliability in time.