Design and Performance of PV Dust Cleaning System in Medina Region

Abstract

This work aims to design a cleaning system for the solar PV panels under Medina climatic conditions. This system powered by the PV module itself. Full cleaning system has been designed and tested utilizing a wiper and water jet to remove the accumulated dust and other dirt from solar panels surface. The proposed cleaning system can be worked for long time efficiently. All the strength system components were examined and found to be stable and reliable. Also, the performance of cleaning system evaluated and comparison between the clean and dusty module performance has been conducted. The system performance has been evaluated for both clean and dusty panel at variable inputs of solar radiation. At input power of 805 W/m2, the efficiency found to be 13.78% for the cleaning panel and 9% for dusty panel, whereas at the input power of 460 W/m2, the estimated efficiency was 12.6% and 7.3% for clean and dusty panel respectively. Significant reduction in the efficiency has been reported as 35% and 42% for both cases. Therefore, the present work can be considering as a promising and efficient system to solve the problem of poor performance of the photovoltaic cells in areas that experience dusty environment and external pollutants. In addition, it is safe clean and economic system.