Author(s)

Mohammad Abu-Naser

Electrical Engineering Department, Philadelphia University, Amman, Jordan.

Allowing the dust to accumulate on solar panels without adequate cleaning leads to huge monetary losses. Proper judgment of when to call for washing of solar panels is a compromise between gross costs of cleaning the panels and how much reduction in efficiency of solar panels can be tolerated. In this paper, we derive a formula for the optimal number of days between cleaning cycles of a solar array by minimizing the cost of cleaning the array and the lost revenue from the unclean panels. The formula will aid in deciding cleaning periods based on the environment in which the solar panels are installed and cost incurred from undertaking the washing process.

Dust Deposition, PV Efficiency Degradation, Optimal Cleaning Cycle

Abu-Naser, M. (2017) Solar Panels Cleaning Frequency for Maximum Financial Profit. Open Journal of Energy Efficiency, 6, 80-86. doi: 10.4236/ojee.2017.63006.