Sea Salt Deposition Effect on Output and Efficiency Losses of the Photovoltaic System; A case study in Palembang, Indonesia

Abstract

Indonesia is an archipelago country creating a challenging condition for the Indonesian government to distribute electricity evenly among the islands. The Indonesian government has encouraged the citizens to move from fossil fuel to renewable energy and targeted 23% of renewable application of energy mix in 2025 and 31% in 2050 following Government Regulation No. 79 of 2014. Indonesia is blessed with an abundance of sunlight to be harnessed and converted into electricity by a solar plant. One of the alternative applications of the PV system is a floating solar plant. However, the installation of the PV system near the ocean or off-shore endures sea salt effects. This paper presents the effect of sea salt deposition on output and efficiency loss of a PV system. Two modules are applied to simulate; one in a normal condition, another one splashed with sea water imitating the situation endures by the off-shore installed PV module. The case study is currently taking place in Palembang, South Sumatra, Indonesia, and the result of this research will be applied to a fisherman village near Palembang. The output measurement results show there were significant differences in production and efficiency. The average output power difference between the normal condition and salt doused PV module in three days is 1.3778 Watt, and the efficiency difference is 0.948. This number is significant considering the tests were taken for three days. The difference gap can be higher by longer time exposed to salt-containing environments.