Proceedings of the Second International Energy 2030 Conference,
November 4-5, 2008, Abu Dhabi, U.A.E.

Modeling of Dust Effect on Solar Panels in Abu Dhabi

Abdellatif Bouchalkha
The Petroleum Institute, UAE

Abstract
We have performed light scattering calculations from dust particles using the T-matrix model to estimate the effect of dust accumulation on the solar panel surface. The accumulated dust is modeled as a superposition of different dust layers with a scattering cross-section. Our calculation shows that after only a few days, the solar panel output performance was reduced by at least 10%, which is rather significant. We conclude that regular surface cleaning of the solar panels is required every 10 to 15 days on the average under normal weather conditions to maintain close to 100% of the normal performance.