Design and implementation of a dust clearning machine to reduce dust soiling on solar PV panels
Date
2022-05
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Abstract
Renewable Energy (RE) has massive potential to meet the world s energy demand.
Renewable Energy Technologies (RETs) are how RE can be harnessed to supplement
energy requirements. Solar Photovoltaic modules are some of the most widely used RETs
globally. Natural environmental factors such as Dust soiling tend to reduce the efficiency of
Solar Photovoltaic modules by reducing their output power. In Ghana, residential and
industrial settings aim to solve problems with dust soiling on solar panels by hiring workers
to clean solar panels manually. This method, however, raises concerns regarding safety and
labour costs. This project seeks to design and implement a dust-cleaning machine to reduce
dust soiling on solar panels to improve operational efficiency. This would provide an
effective solution to dust soiling, resolve safety concerns, and eliminate labour costs. The
paper methodologically sequences the design requirements through major design decisions,
material selection, analytical and numerical comparisons, prototyping, and testing of the
proposed remedy to the dust soiling problem. The fabricated system for a 20 W size solar panel
measured a cleaning rate of 0.016 m2/s and 0.018 m2/s for forward and reversed
motions, respectively. The machine s sprinklers also sprayed 6.65 cm3 of water for every
cleaning second. Per the design proposal, thus for ten 20-watt mounted solar panels, the
machine consumes about 12.1% of the rated power of the solar panels. Finally, the dust
cleaning machine yielded average cleaning effectiveness of 86.2% when using only the solar
panel cleaning brush to clean dust from the panel surface.
Description
Capstone Project submitted to the Department of Engineering, Ashesi University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering, May 2022
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