Experimental study of dust impact on power output degradation of various photovoltaic technologies deployed in West Timor, Indonesia

Abstract

Photovoltaic (PV) technology has been widely used as a source of electricity for household appliances, electrical vehicles, industrial and commercial systems. Energy yield by a PV panel installed in the field is dependent on the amount of photon reaching its solar cells. One environmental factor playing an important role to reduce PV power production is dust. Dust particles generated by human work and natural processes reflect, absorb and scatter solar radiation. This research examined dust effect on power degradation of several PV technologies commonly found in West Timor islands including mono-crystalline silicon (mc-Si), amorphous silicon (a-Si), and polycrystalline silicon (pc-Si) technology. Dust collected from a PV power plant in the island was coated artificially onto the front side of the PV samples. Furthermore, electrical parameters of the panels were examined using a SPIRE 5600SLP solar simulator. A HP spectrophotometer was applied to measure optical property of the dust. Results revealed that maximum power output value of all modules decreased as dust concentration increased. There is a linear relationship between PV output degradation and dust density <0.3 mg/cm2. This is in line with the dust transmittance value which is linear within the density <0.3 mg/cm2. In addition, it was found that different PV technologies shared different respond to the power output reduction. According to the results, at the same density of dust collected from the site in West Timor, a-Si PV module exhibited the largest maximum power output degradation followed by pc-Si and mc-Si technology.