A Study of Dust Accumulating Process on Solar Photovoltaic Modules with Different Surface Temperatures

Yu Jiang, Lin Lu

Research output: Journal article publicationConference articleAcademic researchpeer-review

28 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Published by Elsevier Ltd. This paper experimentally investigated the dust particle deposition onto solar photovoltaic (PV) modules to examine the effect of temperature gradient (thermophoresis) on dust accumulation process under different operating temperatures. The measured deposition densities of dust particles were found to range from 0.50 mg/m2to 0.84 mg/m2under the experimental conditions. The PV module with higher surface temperature has a lower density due to the effect of thermophoresis force arising from the temperature gradient between its surface and the surrounding air. Moreover, the energy output ratios were found to increase from 0.947 to 0.971 with the increase of temperature gradient, showing the same effect of thermophoresis force as particle deposition density. In addition, the most obvious temperature gradient for the thermophoresis force was found to be lower than 40oC. This work will help the engineers to understand the reduced impact of high surface temperature of solar cells on dust particle deposition process.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)337-342
Number of pages6
JournalEnergy Procedia
Volume75
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2015
Event7th International Conference on Applied Energy, ICAE 2015 - Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Duration: 28 Mar 201531 Mar 2015

Keywords

  • Accumulated dust
  • Particle deposition
  • PV modules
  • Thermophoresis

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Energy

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