Effect of dust pollutant type on photovoltaic performance

Many environmental parameters affect the production of photovoltaic (PV) systems and dust could be one of the main reasons of degradation of PV panels. PV systems utilized in large and small scales accumulate different types of dust which reduce the efficiency. The dust contents, which represent a mixture of different pollutants, are specified by the geographical site. There are many studies focused on the effect of dust on PV performance but few studies have investigated the effect of dust pollutant type on the performance. Mainly, the effect of pollutant type has been investigated indoors and few outdoors. In the present paper the effects of pollutant types on the PV performance have been revised and experimented. A critical review and challenging questions have been developed for the researchers working in this field. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.