A New Approach for Long-term Optimal Scheduling of Photovoltaic Panels Cleaning

One of the major problems facing photovoltaic (PV) farms in the Middle East is dust accumulation. Whether it is through a sandstorm or other climate-related variables, dust negatively impacts solar panel performance. Consequently, there is a greater need for cleaning to mitigate the issue of dust on solar panels. Currently, there are numerous cleaning technologies that have been implemented around the world. However, as water is a scarce resource in the Middle East, cleaning is costly in both labor and resources. Therefore, it is important to optimally schedule the solar panel cleaning while using minimal resources. This paper introduces a new method for optimal long-term scheduling for PV panel cleaning. The proposed method relies on developing virtual scenarios for dust accumulation and using these scenarios to find the optimal schedule for the cleaning. Simulation results on a typical PV farm show a significant reduction in the operational cost using the proposed approach versus a fixed cleaning schedule.