Author(s)

Dialo Diop¹, Mamadou Simina Drame^1,2, Moussa Diallo³, David Malec^4*, Dominique Mary⁴, Philippe Guillot⁵

¹Groupe des Laboratoires de Physique des Solides des Sciences des Matériaux (GLPSSM), Département de Physique, Faculté des Sciences et Techniques (FST), Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Sénégal.
²Laboratoire de Physique de l’Atmosphère et de l’Océan Siméon Fongang, Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Sénégal.
³Department of Computer Science, Polytechnic Institute (ESP), Université Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Sénégal.
⁴Laboratoire Plasma et Conversion d’Energie (LAPLACE), Université de Toulouse, UPS, INPT, CNRS, Toulouse, France.
⁵Equipe Diagnostics de Plasmas Hors Equilibre (DPHE), Université de Toulouse, INU Champollion, Albi, France.

This study aims to evaluate the optical losses of photovoltaic modules due to Saharan dust deposition in Dakar, Senegal, West Africa. For this purpose, an air-dust-glass system is modeled to simulate optical losses in transmittance and reflectance. To do this, we have collected dust samples from Photo-Voltaic (PV) surface in Dakar area (14°42'N latitude, 17°28'W longitude), Senegal. X-ray fluorescence reveals that silicon (Si), iron (Fe), calcium (Ca) and potassium (K) mainly composed these dust samples. Then, dust refractive indices obtained from an ellipsometer were used as an input to be used in the model. Simulations show that for radiation (at normal incidence) arriving on a dust layer of 30 μm-thick (corresponding to a dust deposit of 1.63 g/m²), 79% of the visible spectrum is transmitted; 19% is reflected and 2% is absorbed. Overall, the transmittance decreases by more than 50% as of dust layer of 70 μm-thick corresponding to a dust deposit of 3.3 g/m².

Dust Characterization, Modeling, Ellipsometry, PV Transmittance, Solar Panel, Spin Coating, X-Ray Fluorescence

Diop, D. , Drame, M. , Diallo, M. , Malec, D. , Mary, D. and Guillot, P. (2020) Modelling of Photovoltaic Modules Optical Losses Due to Saharan Dust Deposition in Dakar, Senegal, West Africa. Smart Grid and Renewable Energy, 11, 89-102. doi: 10.4236/sgre.2020.117007.