Dust can have a negative impact on the performance of the solar panel. However, the angle of inclination of the module also plays a role in the impact on how this study is displayed in an extreme environment.
It has been 3 weeks since every rain fell in my forest neck in Adelaide. This recording of my solar collectors shows yesterday that they look quite dusty.
According to the Solaranalytics1, however, the system has carried out within the normal area, which is expected from an installation like Mine:
It is one of the advantages to have an “oversized” system. The solar panel capacity (in my case 10 kW) is larger than the inverter capacity (8 kW). A very common and desirable practice is oversized.
The pitch of our roof is 22.5 degrees2; Even a few millimeters rain within a reasonably short time frame should give you a decent clean cleaning. But what happens if these dryming lauer lasted months and months? What could be the influence?
Researchers from Saudi Arabia and Great Britain tried to answer this by studying the power yields of clean and dusty PV modules under studying under desert conditions over a year.
On the roof of the Faculty of Engineering at King Abdulaziz University (Kau) in Jeddah City, they installed seven pairs of 10 watt solar modules. The region experiences high temperatures, low rainfall, drought as well as dust and sandstorms. While Adelaide can be a dry and dusty place, we see no sandstorms and only the rare dust tower.
The fields were installed in angles of 0 ° (flat), 15 °, 25 °, 45 °, 60 °, 70 ° and 90 ° 3; stand south. One of each couple was cleaned every day and the other was allowed to accumulate dust. The duration of the dry and “rainy” period was 183 and 182 days, and the starting performance of each couple was recorded every day between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.
During the “dry” period (which included a dust tower), every impeined module recorded a significant drop in performance. This was in addition to heat effects; Warmth is the enemy of the solar panel efficiency. After 182 days of dust collection without enough rain, to wash it off, the performance reduction for the unnecessary modules of 0 °, 15 ° and 25 ° 80.4%, 75.6%or. 60.2%.
The normalized monthly average performance over different angles for the impeastent solar collectors in the course of the year was as follows, with 1 the maximum of the scale was:
- 0 °: 0.50
- 15 °: 0.61
- 25 °: 0.73
- 45 °: 0.65
- 60 °: 0.48
- 70 °: 0.37
And the clean panels for comparison:
- 0 °: 0.69
- 15 °: 0.79
- 25 °: 0.84
- 45 °: 0.83
- 60 °: 0.59
- 70 °: 0.43
And graphically the above:
Little rain worse than no rain for flat panels
After a slight rain event (0.8 mm) during the dry period, the performance of the dusty 45 ° tilt module improved and approached that of its initial clean condition. However, the module installed a significant amount of water on its surface, which led to cementation with dust when it dried, which led to a reduced performance. This is what this pair of solar panel looked like with labels that are contained by the helpful researchers if we could not see which one is the dirty.
In view of the areas of dried gunk, this could also lead to “hot spots” if they are not treated. However, a 6 -mm rain event occurred 16 days after the dust tower and significantly improved the performance of all modules. Especially those in smaller angles.
After “heavy” rain events (7 mm and 9 mm over two days in a row) When the rainy season came into play, another significant performance was found. Those at the 45 ° and 25 ° tilt angle resulted in the highest performance and consistently gave it up to the end of the experiment.
25 ° The Sweet Spot
“An angle of 25 ° showed the best performance during the dry season, which effectively compensates for the reduction in dust accumulation and the maximum border of the sun’s rays,” says the researchers. “During the rainy season, the optimal angle switched to 45 °, which improved the module performance due to the natural cleaning through rain. During the entire year, modules were consistently carried out consistently with an angle of 25 °, even without regular cleaning. “
It is important to note that the optimal angle/inclination/inclination/direction/direction generally depends on the part of the world you are in.
The full study report entitled “Effects of dust and inclination angle on the photovoltaic performance in a desert environment” was published in the magazine Solarenergie.
In a related note, we reported a Finnish study last week that suggested that the use of dishwashing detergents to clean solar collectors should be avoided – find out why. Incidentally, you can get some tips for cleaning solar collectors here and read the debate about whether it is worth it here.
Footnot
- Solar Analytics is an Australian service that offers performance monitoring (and more) for PV systems on the roof. ↩
- Common roofs in Australia are 15 ° and 22.5 °. ↩
- There were problems with the cleaned 90 -degree panel, which led the partial elimination from the analysis. ↩
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