Influence of seasonal effect on dust accumulation on Photovoltaic panels that operate light posts

Dust accumulation on Photovoltaic (PV) panels is a severe threat that decreases the energy production of PV panels and therefore, lowers their efficiency especially in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Cleaning of the PV panels has always been a challenge for most of the countries in this region due to scarcity of water resources and high dust accumulation rates throughout the year. A new dust mitigation technique has been developed in this research, which consists of a wind shield, antistatic hydrophilic coating and a mechanical vibrator. The objective of this research is to study the seasonal effects on the performance of this new dust mitigation technique for PV panels that operate street light posts. Two experiments were conducted for six weeks in 2021; the first one was in winter while the other one was in summer. In both experiments, two PV panels were examined. The first PV panel is used as a reference panel for comparison and the second panel is provided with a wind shield and a mechanical vibrator, in addition to being coated with an antistatic hydrophilic coating. The function of the wind shield is to obstruct the wind coming from the South direction. The antistatic coating prevents the dust particles from adhering to the panel's surface. The role of the mechanical vibrator is to shake off the deposited dust particles on the panel's surface. The experimental results show that applying the antistatic coating together with the wind shield with vibrating the panel in case of the winter experiment preserved the efficiency of the panel, such that the drop in efficiency did not exceed the maintenance limit of 10% during the experiment. While in the summer experiment, the maintenance limit has been exceeded in the fifth week. This is mainly due to the effect of wind direction and rainfalls, which were present in the winter, unlike the summer experiment where winds and rainfalls are rarely found. This clearly shows that the combination of the wind shield and the mechanical vibrator together with the coating is a promising dust mitigation technique for PV panels operating light posts especially in winter. (C) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Automated summary

A new dust mitigation technique for photovoltaic panels has been developed, which combines a wind shield, antistatic hydrophilic coating, and a mechanical vibrator. The experimental results show that this technique can effectively reduce the negative impact of dust accumulation on panel efficiency, particularly in winter.