Sand and dust are a PV plant operator’s worst nightmare. Performance losses due to soiling, or “the dust effect,” are a cause for innovation among O&M providers, particularly in dry and dusty regions that are otherwise ideal locations for large-scale solar installations. Yazeed Al-Mousa examines the latest robotic cleaning solutions, as well as the software and sensors that help plant operators with the tricky economic decision of when to actually start cleaning.
The Fraunhofer Center for Silicon Photovoltaics predicts that soiling could cause €4 billion to €7 billion of global losses by 2023.
Image: Darbco
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