Automated Solar Photovoltaic Panel Cleaning/Cooling System Using Air–Water Mixture and Sustainable Solutions to Off-Grid Electrification

Abstract

Solar energy has enormous potential to fulfil the energy requirements of the world and can be extracted using solar cells. However, the solar cells are affected by poor efficiency and further affected by wind speed, orientation of the panel, temperature and dust deposition. There are different cleaning technologies devised by many industry experts to clean the solar panels. However, they are facing drawbacks when deployed in the solar farms. An efficient cleaning system, along with an added cooling system, must be devised so that the solar panels must be cleaned and cooled to maximize the energy production. This paper presents a low-cost, fully automated, smart, innovative dust cleaning and cooling system for photovoltaic (PV) panels. The system is designed, fabricated, fully automated using programmable logic controller (PLC) and tested successfully. The automation procedure is explained in detail. A battery-charging kiosk, capable of charging two, 24 V lead–acid batteries embedded within this prototype, shall provide clean energy in a sustainable manner to the rural communities of the developing nations. The user can check the status of the battery such as battery voltage, battery temperature and state of charge on the human–machine interface (HMI) panel while charging the batteries.