Presentation Details
| Solar Technology Soiling R&D: History, Progress, Status, and Trends Lawrence L.Kazmerski1, Suellen C.S.Costa2, Antonia Sonia A.C.Diniz3. 1Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI), University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA.2Matrix Energia, São Paulo, Brazil.3Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais (PUC Minas), Belo Horizonte, Brazil |
Abstract
The current multi-GW annual solar markets have brought a heightened focus on system reliability and sustained performance. Throughout the world, soiling is a fundamental issue limiting solar technology performance and related financial losses. Moreover, many of these growing markets are situated in world climate zones that are most solar-rich, but ironically co-located in geographies that are most soiling-prone. This paper documents and reviews the >8-decade history of the research invested into the science and solutions of soiling of solar components—highlighting the motivation and milestones, the researchers and personalities, the R&D and commercial priorities, and the associated progress. This includes the technological and political influences driving the investments. Some emphasis is placed on the trends over this past decade with the incredible PV market expansions. Reflecting this 80-year progression, the markets, technologies, R&D investments, and politics are mirrored by the volume of soiling journal and conference publications—which have progressed from a handful in the first 2-decades to the multi-hundred levels, reaching >400 per year since 2020. The trends from observation of the effects on performance to mitigation; from submicron determinations of particle chemistry and adhesion to the losses on multi-MW systems; and the progress from ‘Edisonian’ trial-and-error approaches to the use of AI and ML toward major mitigation pathways.
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