Effect of wind barrier height on the dust deposition rate of a ground-mounted photovoltaic panel

Abstract

The soiling mitigation of a ground-mounted photovoltaic (PV) panel is investigated numerically in this paper. For the prediction of the dust deposition rate on the PV panel, the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method has been used. The Shear Stress Transport k-w model and the discrete phase model were employed to simulate the wind flow and the particle deposition, respectively, over the system. A wind barrier was designed and studied. Initially, its optical effect on the performance of the panel has been analyzed, so that the distance in which it will be installed does not reduce production. Then, the behavior of dust particles with different wind barrier heights, different dust dimensions, and with and without gravity effect were carried out. The results showed that gravity had a considerable effect on the behavior of the dust. For small particles, the effect is negligible, while large particles have completely different behavior. In general, the addition of a barrier in front of the ground-mounted photovoltaic system has reduced the particle deposition rate with no gravity effect, the best barrier height was found to be 2 m, while considering gravity, a height of 1.4 m is the most favorable.