Numerical simulation of the dust particles deposition on solar photovoltaic panels and its effect on power generation efficiency

The deposition of dust particles on the surface of solar photovoltaic panels leads to a decrease in power generation efficiency, so it is necessary to study the interaction mechanism between dust particles and solar photovoltaic panels. Aiming at the problem that the simplified two-dimensional model cannot reflect the actual photovoltaic power station in the traditional research, a geometric model of the distribution form of the 3 × 3 solar photovoltaic panel array is constructed. The shear stress transport k−ω turbulence model is used to predict the flow field changes around solar photovoltaic (PV). A discrete particle model is used to predict the particle deposition rate of photovoltaic panels. The effects of different wind speeds, particle sizes, and wind angles on particle deposition were analyzed. With the increase of wind speed, the deposition amount of the photovoltaic panels in the last two rows gradually decreased, while the photovoltaic panels in the first row showed a trend of first decreasing and then increasing. As the particle size increases, the particle deposition amount increases gradually. When the particle size is less than 60 μm, the deposition amount on the photovoltaic panel is less than 0.03g. When the particle size is greater than 60 μm, the deposition amount of particles increases exponentially. The maximum deposition amount is 3.98g, and the maximum deposition rate is 0.796% for 160 μm particles. Wind angle has different effects on the deposition on different rows of photovoltaic panels. When the wind Angle is 0°, the deposition amount of the first row of photovoltaic panels is the largest, the deposition amount is 4.66g, and the deposition rate is 0.932%. When the wind angle is 45°, the deposition amount on the second and third rows of photovoltaic panels is the largest, the deposition amount is 3.21g, and the deposition rate is 0.642%. Finally, the changes in the maximum output power of photovoltaic panels after 60 days of exposure were predicted using an improved dust particle occlusion model.