Have you any idea regarding optimum cleaning frequency of any Solar Plant? Let’s discuss.
India is blessed with tremendous solar energy resources. It has the potential to be amongst the top three countries globally in the next five years in terms of installed capacity of renewable energy. The solar module in order to produce power requires direct irradiance. However, other than internal factors (such as composition of glass) there are also various external factors associated. One such external factor is Soiling Loss. Due to soiling placed on solar panels, it hampers the actual generation of solar power(output).From that point of view it is necessary to clean such modules to regain the output power. Recently as per a Research Study conducted by DNV-GL, it was noticed that outcome of cleaning cycle is the energy output of cleaning array ,tending to increase revenue cost which offset the cost of cleaning. As per their study in AbuDhabi like country(Dry & hot Climatic region) if there are no cleaning happening on modules, approx. more than 25% energy lost in a month. If the cleaning on modules happen for One biweekly, one weekly & twice weekly then approx. energy loss in a month would be approx. 7%,approx 3% & approx. 1.5 % respectively. This shows that if cleaning frequency happens more in PV modules then increase in Output from Solar generation would happen than that of compare to in case of without cleaning. In case of without cleaning the dust longer setting on the glass which altogether damages module quality apart from module power loss.
In today’s time already an advanced technology of Cleaning techniques of PV modules has come in market apart from Manual Cleaning system. This advanced cleaning is none other than Robotic Module Cleaning System. This system is widely acceptable for small as well as large Solar Power Plant system. To conserve more water as well as energy this new Robotic Module Cleaning System has been widely acceptable in market compared to manual Cleaning. Below there is a brief analysis of how important is the no. Of cleaning cycles to increase to generate more efficiency:
| Parameters | Twice weekly Cleaning |
Once weekly Cleaning |
Once biweekly Cleaning |
No Cleaning |
| Energy loss (%) | 1.5 | 3 | 7 | 25 |
| Power generation output(kWh/month) | 125000 | 125000 | 125000 | 125000 |
| Tariff (Rs./kWh/month) | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Total annual loss in energy (Rs./yr) | 112500 | 225000 | 525000 | 1875000 |
| Total no. of cleaning cycles per month | 8 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
| Total Cleaning Cost (annually) | 480000.00 | 240000 | 120000 | 60000 |
A comparative analysis graphFrom this above discussion we can say that the increase of no. of cleaning cycles of PV modules is how much important to increase the expected generation from Solar Plant. In 1 MW Plant if manual cleaning of Panels happen then to increase the no. of cleaning cycles a lot of Human power required which tends to increase more cost in labor & operation from the Owner’s side. This is actually not possible for Owner also here as well as in any large capacity Solar Plants in case of manual cleaning. But if the advanced Robotic Module cleaning approach will adopt instead of manual then it is easily possible for any Solar Plant, which also tends to decrease the Operational cost also. We, Firstgreen Consulting Team already adopted this advanced approach & we have a specialized different team to provide this service.