Experimental investigation of Effect of Dust Accumulation and Discoloration on Photovoltaic Panel Material

ABSTRACT

Several factors affect the performance of photovoltaic panels like latitude, longitude, tilt angle, dust accumulation, shadow, bird droppings, operating temperature, and so on; out of these parameters, dust is less acknowledged. Therefore, in this paper, the effect of the dust accumulation trend on a glass slide sample for 7 days at a geographical location, Gwalior, India, was observed. The characterizations of the dust, such as the transmittance, density, and particle size, were analyzed using a UV-vis spectrometer, chemical balance, and optical microscope, respectively. It was found that there is a 15% transmittance drop on collected dust samples in 7 days, and it is recommended that the panel must be cleaned every third day to keep the panel efficient. Also, the effects of transmittance on PC and PET material utilized in photovoltaic panel encasement for 2 months were observed, and it was concluded that the optical efficiency of PC is 23% higher than PET as well as PC is a good superstrate, but PET is not good encapsulation for photovoltaic cell in optical efficiency regard.

KEYWORDS:

• Dust accumulation
• transmittance
• spectrum
• photovoltaic panel
• PET
• PC

Acknowledgments

The authors are thankful to the Department of Science and Technology (DST), New Delhi, for partially funding the SERB grant (No.: SB/EMEQ).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).