Real-Time Hardware Demonstration of Innovative Technology for Cleaning of Solar PV Modules

The climate change, depletion of resources, sustainability and energy security are the major concerns globally, therefore becomes important to harness technology for sustainable solutions. The energy transition is the shift from dependence on fossil fuels to renewable and sustainable energy resources. This change addresses the urgent need for sustainable, environment friendly energy solutions which is one of the key targets of the vision 2030 of KSA. The power generation from renewable energy resources particularly solar photovoltaic may fulfill the power requirements due to its abundant availability. However, Solar PV power generation faces certain limitations, With dust buildup on solar PV modules being a significant challenge, especially in desert regions such as Saudi Arabia. This research focuses on investigating The effect of dust on the efficiency of solar PV modules, and provide an innovative technology to mitigate the impact of dust accumulated on PV modules. A laboratory prototype is developed to demonstrate the technology. The PV module is cleaned using pressurized clean water, which is sprayed through flat type nozzles to wash the upper surface of the PV modules. Wastewater from the PV module's top is collected, purified, and piped to the water storage tank. Cleaning system water recovery is 95% and water demand is 2.5 Litre/m<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> of PV module area. Analyzing the power of clean and dusty PV modules reveals that the presence of dust has an impact on the power production from PV modules. The cleaning process boosts the PV modules' efficiency to 99% of their original value in just 2.47 minutes of operation. Based on the obtained results it is concluded that the developed technology is cost effective and may be utilized at large scale.