A Unified Global Investigation on the Spectral Effects of Soiling Losses of PV Glass Substrates: Preliminary Results

Conference · Mon Nov 05 04:00:00 EST 2018

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC.2017.8366317· OSTI ID:1515391

Micheli, Leonardo ^[1]; Fernandez, Eduardo F. ^[2]; Smestad, Greg P. ^[3]; Alrashidi, Hameed ^[4]; Sarmah, Nabin ^[5]; Sellami, Nazmi ^[6]; Hassan, Ibrahim A. I. ^[7]; Kasry, Amal ^[8]; Nofuentes, Gustavo ^[2]; Sood, Neeru ^[9]; Pesala, Bala ^[10]; Senthilarasu, S. ^[4]; Almonacid, Florencia ^[2]; Muller, Matthew ^[1]; Reddy, K. S. ^[11]; Mallick, Tapas K. ^[4]

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1. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
2. University of Jaen
3. Sol Ideas Technology Development
4. University of Exeter
5. Tezpur University
6. Robert Gordon University
7. South Valley University
8. British University in Egypt
9. BITS Pilani
10. Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research
11. Indian Institute of Technology Madras

The present work reports on the initial results of an international collaboration aiming to investigate the spectral effects of soiling losses. Identical glass coupons have been exposed outdoors for eight weeks in different locations worldwide, and weekly direct and hemispherical transmittance (T%) measurements are compared. Maximum losses as high as 7% and 50% in hemispherical and direct transmittance, respectively, have been found during the 8-week outdoor exposure. At the end of the data collection, a preliminary analysis of the spectral impact of soiling has been performed. The results show that the blue end of the spectrum is more affected and that lower hemispherical T% correlate to larger area covered by particles.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 1515391
• Report Number(s): NREL/CP-5K00-73965
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION
optical losses
photovoltaic systems
reliability
soiling