EVALUATION OF TILT ANGLE EFFECT ON SOILING OF PV MODULES IN DUBAI, UAE

摘要

The objective of this work is to study and evaluate the effect of inclination on the soiling losses of PV modules installed in the desert environment of Dubai, UAE. The daily soiling rates are calculated for 25 PV modules consisting of four monocrystalline silicon (mono-Si) and one Cadmium Telluride (CdTe) each installed at five different tilt angles from horizontal to vertical: 0°, 15°, 25°, 35° and 90°. All of the studied modules are installed in a south facing multi-tilt mounting structure, and the study period is September 2018 - August 2019. The soiling rate calculation is based on the daily rate of change of a temperature-corrected performance metric (PM), using the Theil-Sen estimator. Results show that higher tilt angles result in reduction of the soiling losses, where the daily soiling rates averaged across the study period range between -0.044% per day for the 90° tilt and -0.44% per day for the 0° tilt. It is also found that the month-to-month variability of soiling rates also decreases with higher tilts.