Real-time investigation of dust collection effects on solar PV panel efficiency

The amount of the light distraction on the PV is made by the accumulation of particles of dust which in turn decreases efficient performance as well as leads to a reduction of money flow for the investors. More studies and tests were carried out inside the laboratories that cannot find a proper solution to mitigate the same. This study can enable the proper cleaning schedules of the PV panels as this work is being carried out on a real-time basis on the rooftops. The measurement of required parameters like irradiation, output power from the panels, and the amount of dust particles accumulated was done on an hourly, monthly, and yearly basis. It is found that nearly 8% of the performance could be dropped annually. For making a sustained operation of the PV panels it is required to have a cleaning process for 45 days intervals, especially for small-scale systems. Copyright © 2024 G, Vedulla et al., licensed to EAI. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, which permits copying, redistributing, remixing, transformation, and building upon the material in any medium so long as the original work is properly cited.