{"id":89149,"date":"2025-01-27T05:13:56","date_gmt":"2025-01-26T19:43:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=89149"},"modified":"2025-07-29T09:57:36","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T00:27:36","slug":"dust-solar-panels-mb3103","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/dust-solar-panels-mb3103\/","title":{"rendered":"Dust And Tilt: The Impact On Solar Panel Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Impact<\/p>\n

Dust can have a negative impact on solar panel performance. But module tilt angle also plays a role in how much the impact will be, as this study carried out in an extreme environment indicates.<\/p>\n

It’s now been 3 weeks since any rain fell in my neck of the woods in Adelaide. This shot of my solar panels yesterday shows them looking rather dusty.<\/p>\n

\"Solar<\/p>\n

But according to SolarAnalytics1<\/a><\/sup>, the system has been performing within the normal range expected from an installation like mine:<\/p>\n

\"Solar<\/p>\n

It’s one of the advantages of having an “oversized” system; where solar panel capacity (10kW in my case) is greater than inverter<\/a> capacity (8kW). Oversizing is a very common and desirable practice.<\/p>\n

Our roof’s pitch is 22.5 degrees2<\/a><\/sup>; so even just a few millimetres of rain within a reasonably short timeframe should give them a decent clean. But what happens if this dry spell went on for months and months? What might be the impact?<\/p>\n

Researchers from Saudi Arabia and the UK sought to help answer this by studying power yields of clean and dusty PV modules measured over a year in desert conditions.<\/p>\n

They installed seven pairs of 10 Watt solar panels<\/a> on the rooftop of the Faculty of Engineering at King Abdulaziz University (KAU) in Jeddah City. The region experiences high temperatures, low rainfall, drought, and dust and sand storms. While Adelaide can be a dry and dusty place, we don’t see sand storms and only the rare dust storm.<\/p>\n

The panels were installed at angles of 0\u00b0 (flat), 15\u00b0, 25\u00b0, 45\u00b0, 60\u00b0, 70\u00b0, and 90\u00b03<\/a><\/sup>; facing south. One of each pair was cleaned daily and the other allowed to accumulate dust. The duration of the dry and “rainy” periods was 183 and 182 days, and output power of each pair was recorded daily at one-minute intervals between 9am and 4pm.<\/p>\n

During the “dry” period (which included a dust storm), each uncleaned module experienced a significant decline in performance. This was in addition to heat impacts; heat being the enemy of solar panel efficiency<\/a>. After 182 days of dust accumulation without enough rain to wash it off, the power reduction for the uncleaned 0\u00b0, 15\u00b0, and 25\u00b0 modules reached 80.4%, 75.6%, and 60.2% respectively.<\/p>\n

The normalized monthly average power output across different tilt angles for the uncleaned solar panels during the year was as follows, with 1 being the scale’s maximum:<\/p>\n