Photovoltaic (PV) modules are periodically cleaned, particularly in large grid-connect photovoltaic plants, in order to avoid losses caused by dust accumulation. However, this maintenance task is often expensive, especially in those areas with water shortage. A hydrophilic coating on the surface of PV modules is one of typical methods to reduce the dust accumulation. But it is not commonly used yet, because the electrical performance of PV modules with conventional hydrophilic coating was slightly degraded by the decrease of transmittance. We have already developed a new hydrophilic power enhancement coating and reported its fundamental characters and results of several ISO/IEC standard tests in SPIE Solar Energy + Technology in 2010. One of the important characters was an antistatic effect. It was showed that the surface resistances of the coated glass and the uncoated glass were 1.3 × 1010Ω and 5.3 × 1014Ω, respectively. It would be understood that lower surface resistance of the coated glass resulted in the antistatic characteristics, which reduce the dust attraction on the coated glass. With the surface resistance result, it could be elucidated that the 3% additional energy production resulted from the antistatic effect of the coating on PV modules in the exposure test after several months without rain in Spain. In this paper, it is shown the results of the antistatic effect performed under the several dust accumulation tests.
Several proposals for increasing the output of photovoltaic (PV) module were conducted. For instance, there are a few
attempts for applying hydrophilic or hydrophobic coating on the glass surface of PV module to avoid dust accumulation
and applying anti-reflective coating on it to increase transmittance of solar radiation. However it is rare to report the
results of durability in consideration of severe outdoor exposure condition, such as desert area. We have developed a new
power-enhancement coating being anti-reflective and self-cleaning properties with simple coating methods like spray or
dip. The fundamental characteristics of the power-enhancement coating have been reported. In this paper, we discuss the
result of several durability tests. The transmittance and water contact angle of the power-enhancement coating were kept
under several durability tests such as UV test, weathering test, heat test, heat cycle test and dust test. Due to the
acceleration tests, it was estimated the durability of the coating was reached to 30 years in terms of transparency and
hydrophilicity.
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