Effect of dust deposition on performance of thin film photovoltaic module in harsh humid climate

This study investigated experimentally the effect of air born suspend matters deposition on PV module located in harsh climate close to the sea. The experimental measurements are carried out under outdoor conditions in Alexandria, Egypt to identify the module performance degradation as a function of time as well as the time schedule for module surface cleaning. However, as the sea is nearby it´s a source for nocturnal condensate on module surface. The experiments were conducted during period from 13 March to 17 April, 2013. The results indicated that the dust accumulation on the module surface has a significant impact on PV module output power. As the dust deposition density increased from 0 to 0.36 mg cm^-2, the corresponding reduction of PV output efficiency as well as short circuit current I_sc are degraded by 17.71%. Conversely, the reduction of open circuit voltage was insignificant where the maximum reduction of V_oc from 100% to 97.86 of the clean module value. The average degradation of power and efficiency during the entire period of work (30 days) is 9.86%. Also the results show that the dust effect on thin film PV modules becomes most significant in cloudy weather day rather than clear day and the degradation in performance reaches about 16.01% in cloudy day.