SINTEF researchers and Hungarian company ProDSP Technology have jointly developed a cleaning robot that enables solar panels to deliver at full capacity.
“It’s a well known fact that solar panels work more efficiently when they’re clean,” says SINTEF researcher and Project Manager Martin Bellmann, “But what‘s new here is that we’ve developed a robot to do the job. This means that the solar cells are cleaned both quickly and efficiently with as little as possible wear and tear or environmental impact.”
Solar farms covering several square kilometers are always clogged with dirt and cleaning them is no less an ordeal. Solar cell researcher Birgit Ryningen is examining a set of glass plates in SINTEF’s Daylight Laboratory. They are all contaminated to order, but in different degrees.
The reason is that the dirt in question has been precisely applied. These plates will now be studied in detail by researchers in order to provide answers about how much the contamination occludes sunlight. This is the final phase of the project.
“The degree to which dust particles and contamination affects solar cells is very location-dependent,” explains Ryningen. “We’ve seen that some dust particles absorb light while others reflect it. And small particles reflect more light than larger ones, whereas some scale contamination is biological and acts as a kind of ‘sun factor’.”
However, what they all have in common is that they must be removed in order for the solar cells to function optimally according to specifications. And this is where the Hungarian-Norwegian cleaning bot comes into play
Project Manager Caroline Sissener at Norwegian company Scatec Solar describes the Norwegian researchers’ solution as interesting, especially for solar energy farms located in the Middle East.
“Cleaning frequency is location-dependent. If a farm is located in a desert environment, the panels will require more frequent cleaning because the solar cells become covered with soil and sand,” says Sissener.
The robot cleaner currently in SINTEF’s laboratory has undergone a range of tests. Researchers have experimented with a variety of micro cleaning pads, chemicals and air pressure application approaches – all tested, of course, on different types of soiling.
“It is vitally important that we don’t discharge chemical pollutants into the environment,” explains Ryningen. “So we’ve rejected the use of traditional cleaning agents and have ended up using unbelievably small micro-droplets of water that are “sprayed“ onto the glass, almost as a vapor. Then the robot uses a micro cleaning pad that effectively removes the contaminant particles.”
Image credits: Promoter Pro DSP Technology, Hungary/SINTEF
