International Journal of Research in Advent Technology, Special Issue, Convergence 2019

E-ISSN: 2321-9637
Available online at www.ijrat.org

Solar Panel Cleaning System

Pooja B. Amle1, Gayatri W. Wankhade2, Parag B. Rane3, Chetan B. Ghatol4, Prof. M. O. Sharma5
Department of Electrical (E&P) Engineering 1,2,3,4,5, Pankaj Laddhad Institute of Technology and Management Studies,
Buldana. Maharashtra, India.1,2,3,4,5
Email:[email protected],[email protected]

Abstract - Energy is one of the major issues that the world is facing in India the supply of energy has been one of the
major problems for both urban and rural households. About 60% to 70% of the energy demand of the country is met by
fuel, wood and agriculture residues. Solar energy is a renewable source of energy, which has a great potential and it is
radiated by the sun. Renewable energy is important to replace the use of electric energy generated by petroleum. Solar
power has become a source of renewable energy and solar energy application should be enhanced. The solar photo-
voltaic modules are generally employed in dusty environments e.g. tropical countries like India. The dust gets
accumulated on the surface of the module and blocks the incident light from the sun. So it reduces the power generation
capacity of the module. The power output is reduces by 50% if the module is not cleaned for a month. The cleaning
system designed cleans the module by arduino programming control. The main objective is to remove the dust in the
photo-voltaic modules to improving the power generating efficiency of the solar power generation system.

Index Terms - Arduino board, DC Gear Motor, Wiper.

1. INTRODUCTION move easily on the surface of solar panels which helps in

The solar energy is the most abundant source of energy for improvement of efficiency.
all the forms of life on the planet earth. The technology of 1.2 Aims and Objective
photovoltaic (PV) is developing continuously in many 1.2.1 Aims
applications, so it generates electricity with no harmful  To maximize the energy production by solar
effect on environment. Various source of energy like coal, panels in remote areas, in utility grade sites, in
gas, hydro, nuclear, diesel and some of them are going to low expense and without impact on manual and
get exhausted within few years. Due to these there is an water based cleaning.
increasing worldwide interest in sustainable energy  The material used for cleaning the solar farms
production and energy saving. But the solar technology should not damage the panels.
has not matured to the extent of the conventional sources 1.2.2 Objectives
of energy. It is facing lots of challenges such as cost,  Design a cleaning machine that runs across the
unpredictability of nature and low efficiency of the panel. length of the panels.
The performance of solar panels depends on various types  Design a control circuit for cleaning mechanism.
of factor such as effect of clouds, shadow, snow, high  Improve overall solar panel power generation
temperatures, pollen, bird droppings, dust and dirt. efficiency.
The main factor that affects a PV panel’s efficiency is
dust, dirt which can reduce its efficiency up to 50%. The 2. LITERATURE SURVEY
best way to eliminate the effect of the dust accumulated on Many research studied the effect of dust and other
the solar panels is to clean the panels. impurities on the solar panel and much experiments have
Traditionally cleaning was done manually. The manual been carried out to clear up this troubles.
cleaning has disadvantages like risk of staff accidents and Considered the southern area of Libya usually carries the
damage of the panels, movement difficulties, poor dust and sand. In this the area of study divided as rural
maintenance etc. The automatic dust cleaning system of desert, where the amount of solar irradiance is large over
solar panels will overcome the difficulties arose in the the year. Thus it inspires to adopt the clean energy
traditional cleaning .The main aim of the project is to resource on desert region.. Weekly water washing is
provide automatic dust cleaning mechanism for solar carried out through periods of February to May in order to
panel. evaluate performance of PV panels. So the maximum
1.1 Problem Statement current and voltage is measured at the terminal using the
Dust build-up on solar module surface is an issue of great digital multi-meter device, before and after washing in
worry, particularly in desert provinces where frequent dust order to gain the maximum power at the operating point
storms occurs. The glass cover transmittance decreases generated by PV module. During study water wash is done
because of accretion of dust on the surface of PV module, once in a week on module without any automatic cleaning
which ultimately decreases the amount of solar radiation technologies, manually by mixed detergents with water
reaching the cells. and use of hand cleaning materials. Furthermore to wash
Accumulation of dust on solar panel reduces their surface module, spry nozzle is fixed at the top.
efficiency in energy generation. That is why we need to Approximately each module consumes around 5 liters of
keep the panel’s surface as clean as possible. So we water. However accumulated dust causes the impact on
designed automatic cleaning machine which can clean and output power and the system efficiency. Hence

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 International Journal of Research in Advent Technology, Special Issue, Convergence 2019
E-ISSN: 2321-9637
Available online at www.ijrat.org
periodically cleaning, maintained performance losses  Needs regular checking for the water and soap
between 2 to 2.5%. [1]. It provided EDS (Electro dynamic residue build up.
screen) understanding for the automated and unceasing 3.2 Electrostatic Cleaning
removal of dirt without water or shifting elements. There This cleaning technology was first developed by
are several strategies are advised such as rain fall, washing scientists in order to solve the problem of dust deposits on
with beverages of various type, wind clearing, shacking, the surfaces of PV. This technology can also be used in dry
air blowing, Wiping, rotating, Nano era containing sun dusty areas on Earth.
sheet coat are suggested and surface vibration to put off
the dirt particles from the surface of sun panel [2]. Dust
accumulation on the solar panels being investigated for a
long period of time that is approximately for one year. The
experiments had done in different countries which have
climate conditions of the dusty weather. Those countries
are Iraq, Egypt and UAE. The solar panels were never
cleaned, initially for one month and then for two months
and so on. The results showed there was a decreasing in
the transmittance of the solar panels, which is emphasize
the effect of accumulated dust, even though the changing Figure 3.2.1:- Structure of PVs system that uses
in the tilt angle which is in concurrence with the dust electrostatic cleaning
deposition on the panels. [3] This method is not safe for homeowners who are using
solar panels because the panel shakes which may loosen its
3. METHODS OF CLEANING connection to the roof and it could fall down and cause
Currently PV panels can be cleaned manually and injury.
automatically. Over time, manual cleaning is more costly 3.3 The Sun Brush Robot
compared to automatic cleaning. This project considered The Sun Brush is a similar fixed cleaning robot
some different cleaning technologies available on the primarily designed for cleaning snow from PV panels. It is
market today, such as; the Heliotex rinse, electrostatic a automated cleaning system for the PV panels.
cleaning and the Sun Brush robot system. These cleaning
methods were chosen to review, so as to determine
whether the cleaning robot will work on a PV panel’s
surface. Furthermore, the use of PV panels cleaning
robotics has been expanding over the last few years to
reduce the need for manual cleaning (Anderson, 2012).
The cleaning methods are explained below.
3.1 Heliotex Technology Figure 3.3.1:- Sun Brush full automatic cleaning over solar
Heliotex is an automatic cleaning system which washes panels.
and rinses solar panel surfaces. The cleaning system can be The disadvantages of using the Sun Brush robot systems
programmed whenever it is necessary, depending on the are that they are expensive and difficult to install over a
environment (Heliotex, 2013). large PV area.
3.4 Manual Cleaning
This method require human operator to clean
manually with the help of mop or any wipers with suitable
support structures.

Figure 3.1.1:- Heliotex cleaning technology

The advantages and disadvantages of using the Heliotex
cleaning system are listed below:
Advantages:
 Good for areas with ready access to water.
 Improves the efficiency of the PV panels after Figure 3.4.1:- Manual cleaning
being washed by almost 100%.
Disadvantages: 4. DESIGN OF SYSTEM
 Expensive equipment such as the soap, hoses and The system consists of different part as shown in figure as
pumps which are required. follows.
 Requires ready access to plenty of water.

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 International Journal of Research in Advent Technology, Special Issue, Convergence 2019
E-ISSN: 2321-9637
Available online at www.ijrat.org

Figure 5.1:- Model of solar panel cleaning system

Figure 4.1:- Block diagram of proposed system.
6. IMPLEMENTED ALGORITHM
5. WORKING OF SYSTEM
An energy deliver with 12 V is sufficient for overall
circuit. Firstly give 230V 50Hz AC supply to step down
transformer 230/12V and SMPS. Transformer gives step
down voltage 12V, 50Hz AC on the secondary winding
and this voltage is rectified by using full wave rectifier.
The rectified output is pulsating DC given to a filter circuit
to clear out the undesirable ac in the rectified output. The
output from the transformer is fed to the arduino. Then
voltage and current sensor senses the output of solar panel.
Sensor output is given to arduino uno and this value is
display on LCD. After that output of SMPS is 12V DC is
given to relay module. As start main supply dc gear motor
start rotating on solar panel motor rotate in forward and
reverse direction it is controlled by using 2 relay module.
we program the arduino as like that once the robot start, it
clean the solar panel up to the track and reverse back after
the 4 second of running it reverse back end, the reverse Figure 6.1:- Flowchart of proposed system
running time is also set up of 4 second and it take the 1
minute delay for next operation. 7. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
For showing of result of our project we perform a
experiment on a small solar panel have rating 12W which
gives the result as following.
Table 7.1:- Efficiency at Different Condition
System Clean condition Dusty condition
Maximum
6.39 W 2.189 W
power output
Efficiency 6.08% 2.653%

By the observation it is observed that power reduction

because of dust accumulated on the panel and it can be
improved by using the cleaning method, there is increase
in power up to considerable percentage value.
8. ADVANTAGES AND LIMITATION
8.1 Advantages
 It is automatic cleaning system that can be
attached to solar panels and operated without
human operation.
 Good for areas where no access to water
 It requires less space for design of the model
 The very less time is required for the cleaning of
the PV panel

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 International Journal of Research in Advent Technology, Special Issue, Convergence 2019
E-ISSN: 2321-9637
Available online at www.ijrat.org
8.2 Limitation [6] H. B. Halbhavi, S. G. Kulkarni, Dr. D. B. Kulkarni ,
 Its required long wires and connections for motor “Microcontroller Based Automatic Cleaning of Solar
supply. Panel”, International Journal of Latest Trends in
 It affected by environmental conditions. Engineering and Technology (IJLTET) ISSN: 2278-
621XVol. 5, Issue 4, July 2015.
9. CONCLUSION
The performance analysis of the experimental setup is
purely based on the amount of power generated on the
dusty panel and a cleaned panel. The output power may
reduce due to the large amount of dust accumulation on the
panel. Dry-cleaning can eliminate the dust particles on the
surface. The assembly is found to be lightweight. In
comparison of costs in manual operation cleaning and
automatic cleaning, the cost for automatic cleaning is
demonstrated to be more economic and significantly less
burden particularly in the system having large number of
solar panels. The power output is varying for the different
weather conditions. A regular periodic cleaning of solar
panel shows the significant performance of the cleaning
technology.
It is observed that power reduction takes place because
of dust accumulated on the panel and it can be improved
by using the cleaning method, there is increase in power
up to 35%.

10. FUTURE SCOPE

Even though our project worked perfectly and
functions as initially planned, there are still a few
improvements that can be made to make it more
marketable and efficient.
Dust sensor with high sensitivity can be used in order
to automatically clean the solar panel rather regular time
intervals and real time monitoring of the entire plant can
be implemented using SCADA or HMI.

REFERENCES
[1] Ali Omar Mohamed, Abdulazez Hasan, “Effect of
Dust Accumulation on Performance of Photovoltaic
Solar Modules in Sahara Environment”, Journal of
Basic and applied scientific Research, Volume 2,
Issue11, Pages 11030-11036
[2] Horenstein M., Mazumder M., Sumner R., Stark J.,
Saddar O., “Modeling of Trajectories in an
Electrodynamic Screen for Obtaining Maximum
Particle Removal Efficiency”, Proc. ESA Annual
Meeting on Electrostatics, Boston University, 2011.
[3] Kutaiba-Sabah, Sabah Nimma Faraj, “Self Cleaning
Solar Panels to Avoid the
Effects of Accumulated Dust on Solar Panels
Transmittance”, International Journal of Science and
Research (IJSR), India Online ISSN: 2319-7064
[4] R. Sharma, C. A. Wyatt, “Performance Analysis of
Electrodynamic Self- cleaning Transparent Films for
its Applications to Mars and Lunar Missions”,
Industry Applications, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON,
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[5] Chandima Gomes, “Impact of Dust on Solar Energy
Generetion Based on Actual Performance”, IEEE
International conference Power & Energy (PECON),
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