Impact of dust ingredient on photovoltaic performance: An experimental study

Different building materials such as sand, cement, and gypsum are transported and stored poorly in Iraq (open-air), so large amounts of them fly into the air and form part of the dust. In this study, collected amounts of dust deposited for three months studied in a controlled manner. The components of the accumulated dust were examined and found that the largest part of it (more than 50%) is silicon oxides (sand), the rest of which represent most significant part of the components of cement and gypsum. In this study, the accumulation of building materials (sand, ordinary cement, egg cement, gypsum, and industrial gypsum) studied on the power output of a photovoltaic module (PV). The effect of periodic cleaning and its duration on the lost power of the PV were also studied. The study results showed that the accumulation of these materials, even in small quantities on PV reduces the transmittance and reduces the resulting power because it prevents the arrival of solar irradiation to the PV. The accumulation of natural and white cement followed by sand and gypsum gave the most considerable loss of energy produced. The studied module cleaned without using any liquids so as not to react with the tested building materials. Natural cement is the most difficult of these materials in dry cleaning due to its particles' small size. The industrial gypsum causes the most substantial power reduction when accumulates in more than 25 g/m(2). When studying the material's ability to adhere to the surface of the dry PV module, the industrial gypsum showed a high degree of adhesion followed by sand compared with the other studied materials. Three methods to prevent the dew water from being connected to the building material were studied, which is to clean the PV daily at the evening, cover the PV with plastic cover from evening until early morning, and turn the PV in the evening to face the ground. The first method limited in effectiveness, while the other two methods were effective in reducing dust accumulation damage and preventing its interaction with dew.