Impact of Climatic Parameters on the Performance of Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Module in Niamey

Abstract

The sensitivity of mono-crystalline solar PV module towards dust accumulation, ambient temperature, relative humidity, and cloud cover is investigated from May to August 2015 for Niamey’s environment. Two solar modules with the same characteristics have been used to carry out the impacts of the dust on the solar PV module. One of the modules is being cleaned every morning and the second one was used for monitoring the effect of dust accumulation onto the surface of the unclean module for May and June. The ambient temperature around the solar PV module was recorded at the same time with the output voltage and the output current to assess the impacts of ambient temperature on the PV conversion efficiency. In addition to these field test measurements, the solar radiation data measured in National Center of Solar Energy (CNES) of Niamey were also used. Also the relative humidity for the study area data obtained NASA power agro-climatology website was used. Results show that the dust accumulation has the greatest impact on the performance of the PV module followed by temperature, relative humidity and cloud cover. Exposing the module in 23 days has reduced the energy output by 15.29%. The power output and the conversion efficiency of the PV module have dropped by 2.6% and 0.49% respectively. The relative humidity also has reduced the energy output by 4.3 Wh/m2/day.