Soiling Loss Analysis on Various Photovoltaic Technologies Installed at Rooftop in Metropolitan/Urban Environment

摘要

Soiling loss adversely impacts the performance of solar PV systems. Several studies have researched the role of tilt angle, composition of dust particles etc. in an effort to understand soiling losses better. However, most studies have focused on one technology at a time and little is known about how different PV technologies perform under the same dust conditions in rooftop installations in urban area. This study conducted over a period of one month compares soiling losses in four solar PV technologies - Poly-crystalline, Mono-crystalline, Hetro junction Intrinsic thin film (HIT) and Cd-Te thin film - placed on a rooftop in Bangalore, India, and concluded that which one is most suitable for similar urban environments full of air pollutants in India. The results show that Cd-Te Technology has the highest soiling losses of about 10.88% at the end of first week while poly silicon has the lowest soiling loss 4.21%. However soiling losses for all four technologies increase incrementally.