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Estimating PV soiling effects with the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model
Citation:
Zhou, L., D. Schwede, W. Appel, M. Mangiante, David-C Wong, S. Napelenok, P. Whung, AND B. Zhang. Estimating PV soiling effects with the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model. 2018 AGU Fall Meeting, Washington D.C., Washington D.C, December 10 - 14, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
Soiling of photovoltaic (PV) panels, the process by which airborne particles deposit and accumulate on solar panels, has negative impacts the performance of the PV system. The performance loss due to soiling can be as high as 50% in sunny, arid, dusty regions, while the loss is typically below 5% for locations with frequent precipitation or low ambient particle concentration. Here we design and examine an approach to estimate the soiling effect by utilizing particulate matter (PM) dry deposition estimations from air quality model simulations and available optical properties. The monthly variation in transmittance loss coincides with the variation in dry deposition that is impacted by precipitation and snow scavenging.
Description:
Soiling of photovoltaic (PV) panels, the process by which airborne particles deposit and accumulate on solar panels, has negative impacts the performance of the PV system. The performance loss due to soiling can be as high as 50% in sunny, arid, dusty regions, while the loss is typically below 5% for locations with frequent precipitation or low ambient particle concentration. In addition to the spatial variation, the energy loss also varies as particles accumulate on the panel over time and are then removed by wind, precipitation or other manual cleaning mechanism. Therefore, it is desirable to determine the expected soiling effect at a given location and time for optimizing PV system performance.
