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The impact of air pollutant deposition on solar energy system efficiency: An approach to estimate 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. The impact of air pollutant deposition on solar energy system efficiency: An approach to estimate PV soiling effects with the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model. SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT. Elsevier BV, AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, 651(1):456-465, (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.09.194
Impact/Purpose:
Soiling of photovoltaic (PV) panels, which is the process that airborne particles deposit and accumulate on the panel, impacts the performance of PV energy system. The deposited particles on the panel absorb and backscatter part of the incident solar radiation and thereby reduce the panel energy transmittance. The performance loss due to the soiling of panels, which is termed as the soiling effect, varies by environment. In sunny arid dusty region such as the Middle East, India, the losses of energy transmittance have been reported between 20% to 70%, while in locations with frequent precipitation or low ambient particle concentration, the losses are typically below 5%. For the same location the performance loss varies when deposited particles on the panel accumulate though time and get removed by wind, precipitation or other manual cleaning.
Description:
Deposition and accumulation of aerosol particles on photovoltaics (PV) panels, which is commonly referred to as “soiling of PV panels,” impacts the performance of the PV energy system. It is desirable to estimate the soiling effect at different locations and times for modeling the PV system performance and devising cost-effective mitigation. This study presents an approach to estimate the soiling effect by utilizing particulate matter (PM) dry deposition estimates from air quality model simulations. The Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) modeling system used in this study was developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) for air quality assessments, rule-making, and research. Three deposition estimates based on different surface roughness length parameters assumed in CMAQ were used to illustrate the soling effect in different land-use types. The results were analyzed for three locations in the U.S. for year 2011. One urban and one suburban location in Colorado were selected because there have been field measurements of particle deposition on solar panels and analysis on the consequent soiling effect performed at these locations. The third location is a coastal city in Texas, the City of Brownsville. These three locations have distinct ambient environments. CMAQ underestimates particle deposition by 40% to 80% when compared to the field measurements at the two sites in Colorado due to the underestimations in both the ambient PM10 concentration and deposition velocity. The estimated panel transmittance sensitivity due to the deposited particles is higher than the sensitivity obtained from the measurements in Colorado. The final soiling effect, which is transmittance loss, is estimated as 3.17 ± 4.20% for the Texas site, 0.45 ± 0.33%, and 0.31 ± 0.25% for the Colorado sites. Although the numbers are lower compared to the measurements in Colorado, the results are comparable with the soiling effects observed in U.S.
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: The impact of air pollutant deposition on solar energy system efficiency: An approach to estimate PV soiling effects with the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model