DEVELOPMENT OF PHOTOVOLTAIC SOLAR PANEL CLEANING MECHANISM

ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

Growing interest in renewable energy has led the solar photovoltaic industry to expand notably in the last decade. However a big issue that is often overlooked too easily, is keeping the panels clean. Panels are often difficult and dangerous to reach and not worth the risk cleaning them. The implementation of a PV system has shown that their reliability and efficiency depend upon many factors.The output of solar PV system is mainly affected by different environmental factors like dust, color, irradiance, shading, etc. Dust is also an important factor that degrades the panel rating. The temperature effect on the current and thus the power rating of the panel is also considered in this paper. Furthermore, autonomous cleaning robots are often only economical on a larger scale due to both installation costs and the fact that custom-made parts are needed to fit the plant. However, dust particles tend to gradually accumulate on the PV surface making the cleaning task more difficult. The accumulated dust reduces the overall PV panel efficiency due to the combined effect of shading and heating.This paper’s focus is on solar panels cleaning mechanism which is more economical to small scale photovoltaic panels. This paper mainly focusing on cleaning solar panels up to 4KW rating which is for small rating. This paper briefly discusses the type of dust and other deposits on solar panel surface but eventually the paper shall focus on atmospheric dust and bird shit as these are most common in the present scenario.The solar panel cleaning device clean the solar panel weekly. Cleaning device increase efficiency and life of solar panel.However, dust particles tend to gradually accumulate on the PV surface making the cleaning task more difficult. The accumulated dust reduces the overall PV panel efficiency due to the combined effect of shading and heating.

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