The environmental factors affecting solar photovoltaic output (2024)

2025, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

The global expansion of solar photovoltaics (PV) is central to the global energy transition. As governments aim to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030, solar PV is poised for rapid growth, particularly outside mid-latitude regions (China, Europe, US) where uptake has been highest. These new growth areas have diverse environmental conditions, where factors like higher temperatures and aerosol concentrations strongly impact solar power production. A comprehensive review of these effects therefore aids PV performance and siting optimization. This review examines six key influences: solar irradiance, ambient temperature, atmospheric conditions, terrain effects, extreme weather events, and long-term irradiance changes. First, solar irradiance has strong geographic and temporal variability, making it the most significant factor. Second, raising module temperature reduces efficiency by 0.4–0.5 % per degree Celsius, limiting productivity in hotter climates. Third, atmospheric conditions (clouds, aerosols, pollutants, and dust) can reduce electricity output by up to 60 %, especially in desert regions. Fourth, terrain factors like albedo and snow present mixed effects, with increased reflection boosting output but snow obstructing panels. Fifth, extreme weather like wildfires and hailstorms cause substantial damage, while solar eclipses lead to large but short-lived output losses. Finally, long-term changes in solar irradiance, driven by climate change and air pollutants, present future challenges for maintaining PV efficiency. Optimizing PV systems for diverse climates and mitigating environmental impacts on productivity is important to the continued success of solar photovoltaics. This review highlights the need for tailored strategies to maintain performance in varied and evolving environmental contexts.

Energy losses in crystalline silicon rooftop photovoltaic systems in selected site locations in Sub-Saharan Africa

IJRED (International Journal of Renewable Energy Development), 2024

A Review of the Effects of Haze on Solar Photovoltaic Performance

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2022

Solar photovoltaic (PV) deployments are growing rapidly to provide a sustainable source of electricity, but their output is strongly impacted by environmental phenomena such as soiling and low irradiance conditions induced by haze from urban sources, dust, and bushfire smoke. This review examines the effects of haze on PV performance, highlights significant results, and identifies apparent research gaps in the current literature. In addition to the severe health issues caused by industrial exhausted aerosol, dust storms particles, and bushfire smoke, reduction in irradiance (in some cases up to 80%) is the most dominant impact of these sources of haze. Haze also causes changes in the received solar spectrum, and higher bandgap PV materials are more affected by the presence of haze and aerosols in the atmosphere by 20-40% than low bandgap semiconductors. In many cities throughout the world, pollution-related haze causes substantial annual revenue loss to PV operators. In addition, haze imposes severe effects on direct irradiance; therefore, tracking systems and concentrated PV systems are most affected. These technical impacts of haze all indicate the need for careful customization of PV systems for specific locations. In addition, to increase global PV output, it is clear that air pollution control regulations such as China’s national policies against air pollution and eco-friendly international actions such as COP26 should be employed and executed. Further studies are needed including indoor experiments, forecasting future implications of aerosols on PV energy conversion, and performing energy policy analysis to identify associated challenges and propose practical strategies.

Characterizing soiling losses for photovoltaic systems in dry climates: A case study in Cyprus

Solar Energy, 2023

Contribution to the building of a weather information service for solar panel cleaning operations at Diass plant (Senegal, Western Sahel)

Open Geosciences

The accumulation of dust on the surface of solar panels reduces the amount of sunlight reaching the solar cells and results in a decrease in panel performance. To avoid this loss of production and thus, to improve the performance capacity, solar panels must be cleaned frequently. The West African region is well known for its high solar energy potential. However, this potential can be reduced by the high occurrence of dust storms during the year. This article aims to provide a contribution to the construction of a meteorological information service for solar panel cleaning operations at Diass solar plant in Senegal (Western Sahel). It is based on a full year in situ experiment comparing the power loss due to dust between solar panels cleaned at different frequencies and those not cleaned. The model to determine the cleaning frequencies is based on the deposition rate of airborne particles, the concentration of airborne particles, and the density of the dust that has a major impact on...

Assessing the Impact of Soiling, Tilt Angle, and Solar Radiation on the Performance of Solar PV Systems

Trends in Renewable Energy

This research examined the observed datasets and a theoretically derived model for estimating yearly optimum tilt angle (β), maximum incident solar radiation (Hmax), clean gain indicator (CGI), and soiling loss indicator (SLI) at Mumbwa, Zambia, the Mediterranean Region, and low latitude locations across the globe. The cleaned tilted collector emerged as the best performing collector due to Hmax and much higher energy gains compared with the soiled collector. CGI showed an appreciable performance of 0.4737% over -0.4708% on the SLI, indicating that soiling on the surface of photovoltaic (PV) modules significantly depreciates the overall performance of PV modules. Two established empirical models obtained from the literature were compared with the established theoretical model (β=φ). The result revealed that the two models overestimated the observed annual optimum tilt angle in this paper, simply because the models were developed with high latitude location datasets from the Asia con...

A comparative simulation between monofacial and bifacial PV modules under palestine conditions

During the last period, solar energy gained a lot of attraction and is expected to be the replacement for nonrenewable energy due to its great potential and advantages, one of these advantages is that solar energy is scalable, which means it can be used on an industrial scale or lesser, another advantage is that solar energy is a clean source, this means it causes no pollution to the environment, in addition, solar energy is the future, as its cost is going down and non-renewable energy is becoming more and more expensive. This project aims to conduct a comparative analysis of the performance of bifacial and monofacial solar panels under diverse conditions. The investigation involves examining the influence of varying albedo levels and the type of surface beneath the PV panels, including sand, white paint, black asphalt, or artificial grass. The renowned software tool PVsyst will be employed to simulate and analyze PV systems. The location selected for this study is An-Najah National University in Nablus, Palestine. The PV panels will be oriented towards the true south, and a tilt angle of 28will be employed. Through meticulous simulations and thorough analysis, this research seeks to provide comprehensive insights into the contrasting performance characteristics of bifacial and monofacial solar panels across different environmental contexts. The ultimate objective is to contribute valuable knowledge regarding the suitability and optimal utilization of these PV technologies. The study aims to evaluate and compare the electrical output, energy yield, and overall performance of bifacial and monofacial solar panels under different scenarios. The project will analyze factors such as the energy gain achieved by the bifacial panels due to rear-side irradiance reflection, the impact of albedo on the performance of bifacial panels, and the influence of shading on both panel types.

Sand and Dust Storms’ Impact on the Efficiency of the Photovoltaic Modules Installed in Baghdad: A Review Study with an Empirical Investigation

Energies, 2023

Photovoltaic Spectral Responsivity and Efficiency under Different Aerosol Conditions

Energies

While solar power applications are growing rapidly worldwide, information about solar energy availability, its characteristics and the factors that affect it are essential. Among other parameters, a reference spectrum (ASTMG-173-03) is adopted, relying on Standard Test Conditions (STC), under which Photovoltaic (PV) devices are evaluated. However, these rigorously defined conditions can vary considerably from realistic environmental conditions. The objective of the present work is to assess the impact of the variability of atmospheric composition on the spectral distribution of the incident solar spectral irradiance (SSI) and, therefore, its implication on various PV materials performance. Ground-based measurements of global horizontal SSI have been conducted using a Precision Spectroradiometer (PSR) in the framework of the ASPIRE (Atmospheric parameters affecting SPectral solar IRradiance and solar Energy) project in Athens, Greece. The gathered data in combination with spectrally ...

Correlating dust deposits with wind speeds and relative humidity to overall performance of crystalline silicon solar cells: An experimental study of Machakos County, Kenya

Solar Energy, 2022

Solar Photovoltaics is one of the budding technologies widely acknowledged as a solution to energy poverty. This is due to its high reliability, long life and automatic operation at low maintenance requirements even though handicapped by its low conversion efficiency and high capital costs. This study investigates the influence of wind profiles, relative humidity and module siting on dust deposition on the surfaces of photovoltaic modules hence its overall performance in an outdoor setup. A significant decrease in short circuit current density (J SC), maximum current density (J MPP), and voltage at maximum power point (V MPP) due to dust deposits on the surface of the PV module are observed. The modules peak power (P max) degradation rate after a fortnight is observed to be higher (4.4 %) for sites experiencing a higher temperature coefficient (T c) for V MPP as a consequence of temperature effects of soiling, lower wind speeds and a higher relative humidity. A lower deposition rate is observed in sites experiencing higher wind speeds and a higher module's tilt angle thus experiencing a lower effect on the reduction of current and voltage parameters. Similarly, the site-specific average wind speeds were inadequate for complete particulate resuspension of small sized particles (less than 500 μm) adhering to PV module surface. Therefore, dust accumulations on the surface of PV modules have significant deleterious effects on the current and voltage parameters.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) applications in Libya: Challenges, potential, opportunities and future perspectives

Cleaner Engineering and Technology, 2021