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Solar Energy
Published in Anco S. Blazev, Solar Technologies for the 21st Century, 2021
The derate factor for soiling accounts for dirt, snow, and other foreign matter on the surface of the PV module that prevent solar radiation from reaching the solar cells. Dirt accumulation is location- and weather-dependent. There are greater soiling losses (up to 25% for some California locations) in high-traffic, high-pollution areas with infrequent rain.
Vortex generators as a passive cleaning method for solar PV panels
Published in International Journal of Sustainable Energy, 2022
M. Mekawy Dagher, Hamdy A. Kandil
One of the biggest challenges facing the world is to find sufficient energy sources for the future. Energy sources coming from fossil fuel are not sustainable and have a negative impact on the environment. Renewable energies are continuously replenished by nature. Solar energy is the largest and most abundant renewable energy (Ellabban, Abu-Rub, and Blaabjerg 2014). The amount of energy provided by the sun to the earth in one hour is Joules, which is equal to the total energy consumed by the whole world in one year (Kashyap et al. 2019). The most important factors affecting the performance of solar PV panels are the increase in temperature and the accumulation of dust on the surface of the panels (Kalogirou, Agathokleous, and Panayiotou 2013; Chiteka, Arora, and Jain 2021). The performance of a solar PV panel is significantly reduced by the accumulation of dust on its surface. Solar PV panels in regions with high concentration of airborne dust, like the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), are strongly affected by soiling (Ilse et al. 2016).
Optimizing vehicle fleet and assignment for concentrating solar power plant heliostat washing
Published in IISE Transactions, 2022
Jesse G. Wales, Alexander J. Zolan, Alexandra M. Newman, Michael J. Wagner
Several technologies can mitigate the impact of soiling on solar field efficiency, including anti-soiling coatings (Sarver et al., 2013; Hunter et al., 2014) and automated, self-washing technologies (Mazumder et al., 2013; Joglekar et al., 2014; Mazumder et al., 2014); see Costa et al. (2016, 2018) for a full review of the soiling-related mitigation techniques for both CSP and photovoltaic systems. Currently, the most cost-effective method for removing dust to minimize soiling losses is the use of wash crews, who operate vehicles to move between heliostats and manually wash the heliostats with brushes and a solution of demineralized water and detergent; however, vehicles without brushes are commonly deployed as well, due to their ability to traverse the solar field more quickly at the cost of washing efficacy (Fernández-García et al., 2014). Some vehicle technologies optimize routing to maximize the wash rate, or the rate at which heliostats are washed in a central-receiver facility’s solar field (Alon et al., 2014).
Numerical investigation of installation and environmental parameters on soiling of roof-mounted solar photovoltaic array
Published in Cogent Engineering, 2019
Kudzanayi Chiteka, S. N. Sridhara, Rajesh Arora
Solar energy derived from the sun has found many uses including power generation water heating and space heating. However, the issue of soiling can be a deterrent factor to the wider adoption of solar energy. Soiling reduces the amount of irradiance converted into useful energy due to its shading effect. It is therefore technically and economically justifiable to develop new ways of mitigating the negative effects of soiling to allow maximum utilisation of the installed capacity of the solar collectors. For rooftop solar photovoltaics, cleaning is more difficult and hence there is a need to develop mitigation strategies that take advantage of the natural cleaning mechanisms such as wind and rain. This study seeks to evaluate and analyse the soiling characteristics of different installation configurations on a rooftop photovoltaic array. Further, the configurations and variables, which give the maximum and minimum soiling, are identified and analysed.