Dust mitigation on PV modules in western saudi arabia

Sunny desert regions, for example those in Middle East and North Africa (MENA), are regarded areas with huge solar energy potential. Under the prevailing conditions, dirt particles adhering to the module surface, called "soiling", cause substantial losses in PV yield. This effect strongly...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in2015 IEEE 42nd Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC) pp. 1 - 5
Main Authors Herrmann, Jan, Klimm, Elisabeth, Koehl, Michael, Slamova, Karolina, Weiss, Karl-Anders, Farah, Abdiaziz A., Jaber, Albraa A.
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 01.06.2015
Subjects
Analytical models
desert climate
dust deposition
Geographic information systems
geographic modelling
Meteorology
Silicon
Soil measurements
soiling test
Solar energy
Surface treatment
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Sunny desert regions, for example those in Middle East and North Africa (MENA), are regarded areas with huge solar energy potential. Under the prevailing conditions, dirt particles adhering to the module surface, called "soiling", cause substantial losses in PV yield. This effect strongly depends on the specific climatic and environmental conditions around individual locations. To estimate the service operation and life of PV modules, an understanding of the interactions between sand and dirt particles and module surfaces is paramount. We concentrate our effort on climatic modeling (based on GIS) to create soiling risk maps and the analysis of present and deposited dust. This work implicates that realistic soiling tests can help to qualify counteracting measures against soiling e.g. the new concepts of functional anti-soiling coatings.
DOI:10.1109/PVSC.2015.7355975