Experimental studies of dust accumulation and its effects on the performance of solar PV systems in Mediterranean climate

This study is an experimental investigation of the effect of natural dust deposition on the performance of three (PV) systems installed on the rooftop of the faculty of science and technology in the city of Mohammedia of Morocco in a Mediterranean climate. To determine the local soiling losses in solar PV systems electrical performance analysis using the IEC60891 procedure and the optical, morphological, and thermal properties of the dust deposited on PV systems is assessed. The results show that power production and maximum current of PV modules decrease by 7.4% to 12.35% and 11.6% to 18%, respectively, after allowing dust to accumulate naturally without any scheduled cleaning. In addition, the optical transmittance of the glass samples is reduced by 75% to 5%, from transmittance/absorbance data obtained with a UV-Visible spectrophotometer. The elemental and chemical analysis results by XRF, XRD, and FT-IR indicate that silica and calcite are the predominant components of the dust sample. Differential scanning calorimetry is used to assess the thermal properties (DSC) in a temperature range of 6–85 °C and the Laser-Flash method (LFA) for measuring thermal conductivity and diffusivity in the temperature range of 25 °C to 70 °C. It has been established that, for a given mass, dust particles can accumulate energy in thermal form when the temperature rises.