Experimental investigation of impact of dust accumulation on the performance of photovoltaic solar module

The effect of dust and sand on the surface of photovoltaic module has been investigated experimentally in this paper. The size distribution analysis of each sample was carried out using digital microscope. The chemical composition was investigated through EDX analysis. Experiments on photovoltaic solar module were conducted under controlled conditions by using artificial light source at different tilt angles and a dust blower. It has been concluded that there was only a small difference of degradation in maximum voltage and current when dust and sand was deposited on photovoltaic panel. The voltage decrement was 9.1%, 3.1%, 1.2% and 6.1% at tilt angles of 35 degrees, 45 degrees, 55 degrees and 65 degrees, respectively. These results reveal that the solar panel should be installed at angles between 45 degrees and 55 degrees in order to minimize the dust impact.