Design, Development and Experiment Analysis of Solar Panel Cleaning System
Publication Name
Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering
Abstract
As the world moves towards a greener future, adoption of renewable energy sources has become very popular and solar power has become one of the most desirable sources of energy. The performance and efficiency of solar panel modules are very much affected by environmental parameters such as temperature, irradiance and dust. Many studies found that the accumulation of dust on the surface of solar panels has seriously reduced the output power of a solar panel. Dust that has accumulated on the panels may reflect or refract the photons thus preventing them from reaching the surface of the panel. Thus, it has reduced the efficiency of solar panels by 3–25%. This study aims to design and fabricate a solar panel cleaning system. The system will be placed atop the solar panels. It consists of an on-board cleaning brush, water tank and control electronics. After the fabrication of the design, testing is done using an acrylic panel embedded with LDR sensors. The intensity of the light passing through the panel is measured before and after multiple cleaning passes. Based on the results, the cleanliness of the surface had significantly improved the efficiency of the panel from 60 to 98% after 3 cleaning passes using water jet.
Open Access Status
This publication is not available as open access
Volume
1142
First Page
35
Last Page
50