Written by: Idris Al Siyabi
Mach 22
Dust is considered as important factor impacting the power generation from PV solar plants. Dust in the air acts as a barrier for the solar radiation to reach the PV surface where the sun rays reflected and diffused. Dust in the PV surface causes less solar radiation passed to the solar cells and consequently; reduce the power generation. The main two factors are the environmental and the installation.
Environmental factors
Installation factors
- Wind velocity and wind direction: presence of wind in the location of the PV plant effects significantly the amount of dust accumulated on the surface of PV.
- Temperature and moisture: the high temperature and humidity increases the amount of dust accumulated on the PV surface.
- Humidity: Humidity increases the amount of dust accumulation where the dust stick on the surface.
- Rain fall: regular rain falls reduces the dust accumulation. In fact, the countries with higher rain fall rate are not facing the challenge of dust.
- Dust properties: dust properties has direct impact of dust accumulation where dry cleaning or blowing of wind could clean some types of dusts.
- Tilt angle and orientation: the higher title angle could reduce the dust accumulation as the higher angle causes the dust particles to falls due to the gravity. Additionall, the single axis tracking system has lower dust accumulation compared to the fixed setup.
- Height: The height of surface at which PV installed has direct impact of dust accumulation due to the fact that dust presence decreases as the hight of the building increases.
- PV surface: the surface properties of the PV has direct impact on the dust accumulation and the frequency of cleaning.
- Installation site & exposure time: The location of the PV impacts the amount of dust in the air where the high rain fall regions has lower dust presence in the air.
The impact of dust on PV mainly on the performance of the PV module, the electrical, optical and the Thermal characteristics.