Mitigation of Dust Impact on Solar Collectors by Water-Free Cleaning With Transparent Electrodynamic Films: Progress and Challenges

Mazumder, Malay K.; Horenstein, Mark N.; Joglekar, Nitin; Sayyah, Arash; Stark, Jeremy W.; Bernard, Annie; Garner, Sean; Yellowhair, Julius E.; Lin, Hsin‐Yu; Eriksen, Ryan; Griffin, Alecia C.; Gao, Yujie; Centra, Ricci La; Lloyd, Alexis

doi:10.1109/jphotov.2017.2721462

Cited by 53 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Their main issue is the availability in desert location of clean and nonsalted water as cleaning can consume between 7 and 20 m 3 of water per MWp per wash and because mechanical cleaning without water can scratch and damage the solar panel or mirror surface. Anti‐soiling coatings are working well for locations where rain occurs, but they can have limited lifetime of few months due to coating erosion during cleaning or sandstorms …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For creating traveling waves, EDS with three or more electrodes are needed. Indoor tests show that up to 98% of the sand can be removed in tens of seconds without using neither water nor mechanical cleaning . First demonstration of particle transport using variable electric field was shown by Masuda et al This approach was used for many different applications like dust removal for lunar and Martian exploration missions or for fusion reactors, particles supply in Xerography and bubbles or blood cells motion in dielectric liquids .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mazumder et al give a complete description of the different forces on dust particles under an electric field . The adhesion forces of particles to a surface are composed of (a) Van der Waals force, (b) image force if the particle is charged, (c) Lewis acid‐base force depending on the electronegativity difference between the particles and the surface, and (d) the capillary force.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In outdoor operating systems, gravitational and wind force should also be taken into account, which will depend on mounting system and meteorological conditions. During the electrodynamic cleaning process, the dust particles are charged positively by various charge transfer mechanisms such as contact charging when a difference in electronegativity is present between the particles and the surface, tribocharging when particles move over the surface and between each other, and microfilament charging when high space charge is created between the surface and the particles …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The electrode design can vary from standard interdigitated electrical line (in particular for standing wave) to spiral design (Figure A). The voltage difference between electrodes usually varies between 0.9 and 7 kV.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Field test and electrode optimization of electrodynamic cleaning systems for solar panels

Faes

Petri

Champliaud

et al. 2019

Progress in Photovoltaics

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Soiling is the major cause of power loss of photovoltaics (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP) in desert areas. Electrodynamic cleaning system (EDS) is an automatic and water‐free integrated cleaning system for mirrors or solar panels, which uses pulsed electric fields to remove dust off their surface. The first EDS field test over a long period on PV modules is reported here and shows a clear effect on soiling reduction in real conditions in Saudi Arabia. A total of 458 days of measurements is analyzed, and depending on the considered periods, performance losses due to soiling (soiling rate) can vary from −0.06%/day to −0.41%/day for a reference module, while the relative soiling rate reduction using an EDS can be up to 95.7% with an average of 32.1%. Cost calculations demonstrate an added value of the modules equipped with the EDS between 2.6 and 5.2 ¢/Wp compared with usual cleaning system, which is nearly between 10% and 20% of the module price. In addition, extended indoor tests of various electrode designs of EDS for heliostat dedicated to CSP or PV applications show a high cleaning efficiency of up to 98% with front glass thickness of more than 1 mm. A good specular reflectivity, only 4% lower than the bare reference mirror, is obtained with patterned sputtered silver in a spiral electrode design. High reliability of two types of electrode deposition is demonstrated after 200 cycles between −40°C and +85°C.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%