Photovoltaic panel cleaning and maintenance methods illustrated

How to clean a PV panel?

Consequently, specific cleaning techniques are required to mitigate the accumulated dust and restore the plant's efficiency. The most popular PV panel cleaning techniques include natural, manual, automatic, and electrostatic cleaning. Each cleaning technique is associated with both positive and negative impacts.

Which cleaning technique is best for solar PV panels?

The TOPSIS method is employed to compare the cleaning techniques and rank them from most favored to least favored. Manual cleaning of the PV panels is the highest ranked cleaning technique according to the TOPSIS ranking. The efficiency and power output of photovoltaic (PV) panels are vital to the solar PV plant.

What is solar panel cleaning?

First and foremost, let us introduce the two different terms discussed in this article: Solar panel cleaning: this entails washing the panels like windows. The cleaning may be combined with preventive maintenance of the solar collectors.

Can solar panels be cleaned automatically?

A solar panel can be cleaned either manually or automatically. This paper sheds its focus on recently developed automatic cleaning systems of solar cells, including Heliotex, Robotic, Electrostatic, Automatic brush, and Coating mechanisms. These mechanisms are very mature nowadays and employed for cleaning solar panels.

How often should a PV panel be cleaned?

The cleaning frequency was estimated based on the velocity of the dust deposition and the correlation between the power performance of the PV panel and the density of the dust deposition. The novel model estimated the cleaning frequency to be 20 days when the power reduction is 5% and the particle concentration is 100 μg/m3 .

What are the different types of automatic cleaning systems of solar panels?

The existing automatic cleaning systems of solar panels are various and can be categorized into two main types: i) active, and ii) passive cleaning systems. Active systems require power for self-cleaning methods, such as electrostatic and mechanical methods.