Influence of detergents types and clean method on PV cells performance: An experimental study

Abstract

Abstract Accumulation the dust and dirt soiling on photovoltaic (PV) panels’ surfaces represents a major problem which inevitably undermines their operational performance. Thereby, removing the soiling and cleaning the panel surfaces is necessary to upgrade the PV cells performance. In this study the influence of detergent types as a cleaning material on PV panels’ outcomes has been investigated experimentally. Three detergents types that widely materials using in the home cleaning include: Tap water, mixture of dishwashing liquid with water and glass cleaner were tested. Furthermore, manual cleaning by using a piece of cloth or wiper were utilized as a cleaning tools were also evaluated. The experimental results appeared that enhancement the PV panel performance after using home detergents materials, where the performance increased by 25.35% and 19% when used a glasses cleaner and mixture of water and dishwashing liquid respectively, compared with 7.34% when used tap water only. In addition, using the manual wiper as a cleaning technique was achieved a better PV panel performance than piece of cloth for all detergents materials.