Time-Effective Dust Deposition Analysis of PV Modules Based on Finite Element Simulation for Candidate Site Determination

For a photovoltaic (PV) power generation system, the shading effect of PV panels caused by dust deposition is extremely unfavorable. The deposition of dust results in a severe reduction of power generation output, since the efficiency of PV panels is affected by the shading irradiance and blocking the cooling. In this study, a numerical simulation method is proposed to model the dust accumulation on PV panels to detect the effects on PV power generation caused by different wind directions and wind speeds. Due to the high accuracy of numerical simulation, and the short calculation cycle, the proposed method provides a certain prediction for the soiling management of PV panels in the wind-sand environment. Through simulations and experiments, the impacts of dust accumulation on the performance of PV panels with different wind directions are studied in detail with the wind speed changing from 4.43 m/s to 6.48 m/s and the dust particle size of 10 μm to 100 μm, which are based on the environment of Liverpool, England in a year. Besides, for PV arrays, the turbulences of the dust distribution around the PV panels are also analyzed. The data collected from experiments and simulations are used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.