PREDICTIVE MODELLING AND ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTS OF METEOROLOGICAL PARAMETERS AND ORIENTATION ON SOILING OF FIXED TRACKING ISOLATED PV MODULES

Soiling is a major concern for solar photovoltaic installations and its applications. The effect of six meteorological parameters on soiling under different fixed solar collector azimuth angles were experimentally investigated. It was found that wind velocity and its direction are the major meteorol...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inInternational journal of energy, environment, economics Vol. 26; no. 2; pp. 77 - 95
Main Authors Chiteka, Kudzanayi, Arora, Rajesh, Sridhara, S N, Enweremadu, C C
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Hauppauge Nova Science Publishers, Inc 01.03.2018
Subjects
Air temperature
Atmospheric models
Azimuth
Circuits
Dust
Efficiency
Energy dissipation
Energy loss
Humidity
Investigations
Meteorological parameters
Particle size
Photovoltaic cells
Photovoltaics
Prediction models
Regression analysis
Regression models
Relative humidity
Short circuit currents
Short-circuit current
Soils
Solar collectors
Velocity
Wind
Wind direction
Wind speed
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Summary:Soiling is a major concern for solar photovoltaic installations and its applications. The effect of six meteorological parameters on soiling under different fixed solar collector azimuth angles were experimentally investigated. It was found that wind velocity and its direction are the major meteorological variables contributing to soiling with relative humidity, maximum temperature and air pressure being significant parameters as well. The analysis of electrical performance showed that wind flow facing the collector yield more soiling than wind flow facing behind the collector as indicated by the azimuth of 157.5o having better performance than the azimuth of 202.5o. The collector with azimuth of 157.5o had an annual energy loss of 9.65% while the collector with azimuth of 202.5o had an annual energy loss of 19.21% owing to its position in relation to wind direction. There was a maximum of 35% and 17.85% drop in short circuit current (Isc) and fill factor (FF) respectively with Voc having a very insignificant change. The predictive multiple linear regression model developed relating meteorological parameters and soiling showed a good performance with Ri, MAPE, RMSE, MBE and ME of respectively 73.2%, 11.41%, 5.96Wh, 0.025Wh and 67.3%.
ISSN:1054-853X