Effect of Voltage Rise Time on the Efficiency of Electrodynamic Dust Shield

Abstract

Electrodynamic dust shield (EDS) has been proposed as a potential anti-dust solution for terrestrial solar photovoltaic (PV) power generation in dusty environments. EDS typically uses square wave alternating high voltage, but the actual voltage waveform on the EDS is trapezoidal, with the voltage rise time dependent on the high voltage source's current capacity, especially for real-world applications, where the EDS devices’ dimensions are large. It is therefore necessary to address the effect of voltage rise time on EDS efficiency. In this study, we measured the EDS efficiency by keeping the peak-to-peak voltage constant at 6 kVpp while varying the voltage rise time by adjusting the high voltage source's maximum output current from 0.2 to 40 mA, corresponding to voltage rise time from about 100 ms to a fraction of a millisecond. The EDS was operated in both the single-operation mode and the cyclic-operation mode. In the single-operation mode, voltage rise time affected the EDS efficiency in a complex manner and showed interactions with other factors. In the cyclic-operation mode, with the three faster voltage rise times the EDS efficiency was statistically indistinguishable at about 33%, but it became significantly lower, at 14%, with the slowest voltage rise. The finding shows that high voltage sources should be able to provide sufficiently fast voltage rises for EDS to be efficient in removing dust from solar PV modules.