The effect of soiling on energy production for large-scale photovoltaic plants

This work aims to evaluate the effect of soiling on energy production for large-scale ground mounted photovoltaic plants in the countryside of southern Italy. Since the effect of pollution can seriously compromise the yield of solar parks, the results obtained in this study can help the operation and maintenance responsible in choosing the proper washing schedule and method for their plants and avoid wasting money. In order to determine the losses due to the dirt accumulated on photovoltaic modules, the performances at Standard Test Conditions (STC – Irradiance: 1000 W/m2; Cell temperature: 25 °C; Solar spectrum: AM 1.5) of two 1 MWp solar parks before and after a complete clean-up of their photovoltaic modules have been compared. The performances at STC of the two plants have been determined by using a well-known regression model that accepts as an input two climate data (the in-plane global irradiance and the photovoltaic module temperature), while the output results in one electrical parameter (the produced power). A regression model has been preferred to a common performance ratio analysis because this latter is too much influenced by the seasonal variation in temperature and by the plant availability. The results presented in this work show that both the soil type and the washing technique influence the losses due to the pollution. A 6.9% of losses for the plant built on a sandy soil and a 1.1% for the one built on a more compact soil have been found. Finally, these results have been used in order to compare the washing costs with the incomings due to the performance improvement.