Characterization of PV Soiling Losses in Urban Mediterranean Environment

Soiling losses may have an impact in PV performance as a result as a complex balance between sources associated to environmental conditions and removal mechanisms like precipitation and wind. In the PVCastSOIL project a small experimental facility is set up in a park zone in Madrid to characterize the soiling in a near forest urban zone. The soiling ratio has been estimated from two different methodologies by comparing the performance of a soiled module with a reference module (which is cleaned every week). The methodologies are based on estimating the performance ratio from the maximum power and from the short-circuit current (since I-V curves are being monitored for every PV modules). The preliminary results show an average soiling ratio below 1% for modules with tilt angle of 8 and 0.5% for 35 tilt angles.