Effect of Dust Deposition on the Performance of Multi-Crystalline Photovoltaic Modules Based on Experimental Measurements

Abstract

This paper investigates the dust effect on the photovoltaic module (multi-crystalline) performance (the output voltage and generated power). The degradation of PV performance due to the deposition of different pollutant types, and accumulation has been investigated. Experiments concerning the effects of air pollutants (red soil, ash, sand, calcium carbonate, and silica) on the power generated are conducted and analyzed. The results show that the reduction in PV voltage and power is strongly depending on pollutant type, and deposition level.  The results show that the ash pollutant is the most effecting dust particle on the PV module voltage as compared to the other used dust pollutants where high reduction in PV voltage (25%) is recorded when the ash pollutant is used.

Keywords

• Photovoltaic; dust deposition; red soil; ash; limestone

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