Numerical study on polydispersed dust pollution process on solar photovoltaic panels mounted on a building roof

Abstract

Dust accumulation on photovoltaic panels would greatly reduce the efficiency and lifetime of the PV system. This study presents a study on deposition behaviors of polydispersed dust on photovoltaic panels mounted on a building roof. Computational fluid dynamics method was adopted to model air flow around the building and dust pollution process. The results showed that dust deposition behaviors are significantly affected by different dust sizes. Besides, dust deposition rates are obviously enhanced when the wind velocity increases. The maximum deposition rate can be up to 11.45% for 5m/s wind velocity. This study may be helpful for understanding dust deposition characteristics on PV system and further developing more efficient solution.