Dr. Hasimah Bt. Abdul Rahman
Associate Professor, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia.

Speech title: Effect of Dust Physical on the Performance of Poly-crystalline PV Module based on Indoor Experiment

Abstract: Soiling occurrence due to dust settlement on the PV module surface has proven to reduce the performance of a PV system in the context of power generation. Its presence will partially block the direct solar irradiation from reaching the module and thus reducing the energy conversion. Moreover, it is also significantly influenced by surrounding environment, climate behaviour and rise in module temperature. It is discovered that proliferation of soiling or dust density will increase dirt de-rating factor value, reduce the amount of sunlight absorb by the PV module and thus decreasing the output power of the PV system. This paper presents an experimental-based approach to investigate the effect of soiling on PV module performance conducted inside a laboratory at a control condition. The indoor experiment involved with accelerated artificial dust loading for testing dust physical property which is the density of dust accumulation, relative size and dust colour. The findings show that intensification of soiling density has severe reduction effect to the short circuit current (𝐼𝑠𝑐) but minimal to open circuit voltage (𝑉𝑜𝑐). Also for the dust particle relative size, the result has proven that the finer dust particle able to reduce the PV module performance more than the coarser particle. Meanwhile, the brighter dust tones and colours are found to reduce module performance more than the darker one.