Saturday, October 29, 2011
Hall 1-2 (San Jose Convention Center)
In December 2010, HNu Photonics installed and began operation of 550 solar panels at Pi‘ilani Shopping Center on the island of Maui, Hawaii. The project includes a 20-year period of monitoring and maintenance of all systems with future improvements. HNu Photonics recommends that the arrays be cleaned twice per year due to the dry and dusty (red dirt) climate of the system location. As dirt accumulates on top of each array, power output will slowly decrease, adversely affecting the system that uses the generated energy. The purpose of this study is to analyze the corresponding power output, and determine how much the power are affected due to different amount of dirt on the modules. Before cleaning the panels, the power generated per day, average, and the peak power were monitored on a daily basis for 30 days. After collecting these data, each of seven different locations of solar panel installations will receive a cleaning method recommended by the solar panels’ manufacturer. By doing this, we expect to achieve measurable differences between the panels’ performances and be able to understand degradation due to dust particles. We also plan to develop a customized cleaning method for each solar panel location to minimize cost and time, as some tend to collect more dust and debris than other panel locations.