Performance enhancement of solar photovoltaic system using waterless cleaning system

ABSTRACT

This study presents an experimental investigation of the proposed waterless photovoltaic (PV) cleaning mechanism in a semi-desert environment. The goal of this research is to improve the efficiency of the solar photovoltaic systems while reducing cleaning costs and avoiding the use of water, ensuring effectiveness and adaptability. In this paper, the effectiveness of the suggested waterless PV cleaning technique has been evaluated by considering a variety of factors, such as cleaning performance, cost, energy consumption, and land use. In the post-monsoon, winter, and summer seasons, the overall gain in energy generation is 1.64%, 4.34%, and 7.76% higher than that of the PV system without the cleaning technique, respectively. The efficiency of a conventional PV system using weekly cleaning was reduced by 1.92%, 2.01%, 1.62%, and 2% after the first, second, third, and fourth weeks, respectively, whereas the PV system’s efficiency with the suggested waterless cleaning method was reduced by 0.67%, 0.67%, 0.42%, and 0.25%. A conventional PV system that involves cleaning every day (using water and cloth) was compared to a suggested waterless cleaning PV system for 30 days, and it was noted that the average efficiency of the suggested waterless PV cleaning system was 0.56% less than the average efficiency of the daily manual cleaning PV system. In the event of a hailstorm, there is no way to protect PV panels. The proposed system both cleans up the dust and shields the PV system from hail.

KEYWORDS:

• Photovoltaics
• soiling
• cleaning methods
• hailstorm protection
• solar energy

Disclosure statement

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

Recommended for future work

Future research will include learning about the challenges of commercializing this technology on a large scale, as well as testing the performance of various cleaning brush materials.