Experimental investigations for dust build-up on low-iron glass exterior and its effects on the performance of solar PV systems

Prasanth K. Enaganti, Ankur Bhattacharjee, Aritra Ghosh, Yusuf N. Chanchangi, Chanchal Chakraborty, Tapas K. Mallick and Sanket Goel

Energy, 2022, vol. 239, issue PC

Abstract: The performance of solar photovoltaic (SPV) power plants is adversely affected by soiling losses caused by natural dust deposition on the module surface. The size and density of dust particles vary depending on the location. Thus, it is essential to investigate the impact of dust collection on SPV module performance. This work investigates the effect of dust build-up on the low-iron glass surface and the performance of SPV modules. To analyze the characteristics of these dust particles, low-iron glass samples have been chosen, which resemble a front glass surface of the SPV module. To study the holistic pattern of the natural dust accumulation of a particular area, low-iron glass samples have been placed with three different positions like vertical, horizontal, and local tilt angle for Building Integrated Photovoltaic Systems (BIPV) and rooftop PV power plant applications. The mineralogical study of dust particles provides insight in determining the transmittance loss from the glass surface of solar PV modules due to the local soiling loss. Furthermore, the electrical power output of the SPV modules has been monitored at various levels of dust accumulation. Moreover, these findings indicate that natural dust deposition at selected site locations significantly reduces energy generation from PV modules.

Keywords: Monocrystalline solar PV; Polycrystalline solar PV; Low iron glass; Transmittance; Soiling losses (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544221024610
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:239:y:2022:i:pc:s0360544221024610

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2021.122213

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().