|| Volume 3 || Issue 3 || March 2018 || ISO 3297:2007 Certified ISSN (Online) 2456-3293
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF SOLAR PANEL CLEANING
SYSTEM
Mr. Rajendra L. Gaike1 , Prof. Sanjay Y Gadkari 2, Sachin S. Kangane 3
Research Scholar, Department of Electronic and Tele-communication Engineering, MIT(T) Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India1,2,3
[email protected],
[email protected] ,
[email protected] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Abstract: The solar panel works, when sunlight imparts on surface of solar panel. Amount of light that impart on solar
panel is directly proportional to the energy generated through it. More the light that imparts more is the power
generation. Due to the upwards angle of solar panels, there is lot of collection of dust and bird excreta. This reduces the
amount of light that impact on the panel and reduces the panel output hence efficiency gets decreased. The solar panel
manufacturers and installers claimed about the projected energy figures that based on the optimum performance of clean
solar panel. Due to increasing the dirt on solar panel that can adversely affect the panel’s ability to achieve desired
output. This is a big challenge in this area; so it is necessary and important to clean the solar panel in order to protect
and get more power output. So we have designed and developed the automatic machine which will clean the solar panel
and improve the panel efficiency & thus reducing the human effort. This low cost solutions very useful in the sector of
non conventional energy.
Keywords – Solar system, solar cleaning system, robotics solution for solar cleaning, non conventional energy.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I INTRODUCTION manual washing which is tedious and also expensive in terms
of the labor involved and time. In practice cleaning Today’s
M ost of the industrial applications use the solar (PV) World is using the Solar Energy for electricity generation
widely. This Solar energy is mainly used by different
panels as an electrical power source instead of relying on the
Industries, Power Plants (which work on solar energy to
generators or the ordinary sources for electricity. The most
generate electricity) in bulk.
important part of these systems is solar panel where the solar
Along with the other issues that reduces
energy is converted to electricity. As this is one of the easy
performance and efficiency of the power generation, one of
ways of generation of electricity, Photovoltaic panel
the main issues that can be highlighted is the performance
production has increased globally in response to the growing
and efficiency of solar panel.
demand for solar energy. This has become a solution for
Challenges
environmental degradation due to fossil fuels. There are
Inclination of panel:
many factors that affect PV power efficiency, such as birds
Solar panels are located on roof of buildings. The
excreta, dust and dirt. The main factor that affects a PV
roof of building has inclination by an angle of 20-30 degree.
panel’s efficiency is dust, which can reduce its efficiency by
That makes robot unstable while operation. When water is
up to 25-30%, depending on the environment.
sprayed over surface of panel robot faces difficulties and has
Though the bird dropping and dirt is not making a
chances to slip over panel. Unequal gaps present between row
big issue, it can be seen that the efficiency of solar panel
and column of solar panels:
decreases by 15-20%. So cleaning the solar panels in a
Equal gap between solar panels is not maintained
frequent period is necessary for getting same output for properly while setting. So this creates problem for
longer time. propagation of robot from one panel to other. So this was also
Cleaning the solar panels is normally done by
the criteria to make the robot flexible.
WWW.OAIJSE.COM 13
|| Volume 3 || Issue 3 || March 2018 || ISO 3297:2007 Certified ISSN (Online) 2456-3293
II STUDY AREAS Final Design:
Use of solar panel is carried at various places and for
various applications since 19th Century. At that time level of
pollution in environment is much less compared with today.
So cleaning solar panels was not main issue. Also the
cleaning process wasn’t carried in frequent manner. The
cleaning carried at that time is by manually. One operator
cleans the solar panel with help of water, cleaning material
like liquid soap or detergent and piece of cloth. This method
was time consuming and also gives less satisfactory cleaning
results. Further the cleaning is carried out using wiper. This
process takes less time and better cooling than previous
method. But these methods were working fine for the
environmental condition at that time.
As the evolution of technology has happened
tremendously since last two decades, the amount of pollution Picture 2: Implementation of Solar Panel Cleaning System
of environment is increased in considerable manner. This Components Required
affects the solar panel efficiency by the deposition of dust on Chassis of Robot:
solar panels. As manual cleaning by piece of cloth or wiper The chassis of this robot is made up of Aluminium
cannot give satisfactory results, nowadays semi-automatic Composite Material. It consists of 4 L-Shaped motor
and automatic cleaning systems have been developed. These mountings to hold Motors on their proper position. Chassis
automatic systems give very high performance than the also provides rugged structure for battery and other electronic
manual cleaning operations. It also saves time & efforts in component.
considerable manner. Drive Motors:
Motors provide motion to robot for propagation in
III APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY
both forward and reverse direction. Motor runs at 200 RPM
Initially, the location of solar panel was studied so on 12 V DC squirrel cage & 7 A battery supply.
that to understand the various problems that company is Crawler Belt:
facing. Also, position of solar panel was one of the important It is a belt of flat plate which protects around the set
points that is to be considered. Along with this energy of wheels, tend to move complete body. It has got many
production, losses and manpower requirement are also the connecting links (flat plates) connected together.
important things that were highlighted. Wireless Circuit:
It consists of Arduino and Motor driver chip use to
drive the motors. It also consists of play station to Wireless
Emitter and Receiver, use to control movement of robots.
Cleaning Mechanism:
It consists of Rotating Nylon brushes, use to remove
the dust, after it, nylon sponge is placed use to clean the dust
and water from panel. Following these wiper is placed to
wipe out water remained after nylon sponge. It ensures that
no water and dust is remained on panel.
IV WORKING
With the help of these components and by
assembling them, a wireless cleaning robot is made. 12V
Battery gives power supply to run motors. Crawling belt is
located over wheels of robot. These wheels are attached with
motors and receive power from it. With this robot can
propagate over solar panel surface. As we can see in design
cleaning brush and cleaning sponge cleans solar panel. At last
Picture 1: Approaching methodology for Solar Panel wiper wipes out water from surface of panel and ensures total
Cleaning System cleaning.
WWW.OAIJSE.COM 14
|| Volume 3 || Issue 3 || March 2018 || ISO 3297:2007 Certified ISSN (Online) 2456-3293
Performance Analysis V CONCLUSION
Table 1: Comparison Table for Solar Panel Cleaning Reduction in manpower:
System Robot requires less time for cleaning of solar panel
in comparison with manual cleaning. It ultimately reduces
Current Output Expected Output total time required for cleaning of all panels present on roof
Month
(KW) (KW) of plant buildings.
JAN 600 650
Efficient cleaning:
FEB 650 700
As we studied there are many problems in manual
MAR 700 750
cleaning like manual cleaning is unable to clean sticky dust
APR 1000 1100
and materials present over surface. This cleaning robot
MAY 1500 1600
removes those sticky dust and materials.
JUN 1400 1500
Increase in Power generation:
JUL 1000 1100
This robot gives a cleaned surface after operation in
AUG 900 950
easy way and in less time and effort. As we know, due to dust
SEP 900 950
deposition sun rays cannot reach to surface. On cleaned
OCT 800 850
surface, sunrays impartation increase. So efficiency of panels
NOV 700 750
increases by 10-20%.
DEC 700 750
Final View:
Picture 3: Final view of Solar Panel Cleaning System
REFERENCES
[1] Dabhi Chirag, Design And Development of Solar Panel
Figure 1: Graphical representation of Output analysis Cleaning Machine, International Journal of Advance
Table 2: Output analysis of Solar Panel Cleaning System Engineering and Research Development, April 2017, e-ISSN
: 2348-4470.
[2] S. B. Halbhavi Department of Electrical & Electronics
Engineering Microcontroller Based Automatic Cleaning of
Solar Panel Gogte Institute of Technology, Belgaum
Karnataka, india.
[3] 1K. S. Margaret, 2T. Bathirnath, 3V. Dinesh Kumar, 4N.
Praveen Kumar 1Assistant Professor, 2, 3, 4 UG Student 1, 2,
3, 4 Automatic Solar Panel Cleaning Robot Department of
EEE, S.A Engineering College, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
[4] Renewable Energy Sources & Management (Elective) by
J.S.Katre.
[5] Sharif Nami; Nameer Khan; Youssef Elgendi; James
Advantages
Aziz; Miad Nasr; Olivier Trescases Power architecture of a
1) Reduced in manpower requirement.
high-voltage dielectro phoresis- based
2) Efficient & proper cleaning.
contactless cleaning system for solar panels 2017 IEEE 18th
3) Less consumption of water.
Workshop on Control and Modeling for Power Electronics
Disadvantages
(COMPEL)
1)Charging of Li-Po battery is required after some time.
WWW.OAIJSE.COM 15
|| Volume 3 || Issue 3 || March 2018 || ISO 3297:2007 Certified ISSN (Online) 2456-3293
BIOGRAPHY
Mr. Rajendra Laxmanrao Gaike
Currently, working as Assistant Professor of
Electronic Tele- communication
Engineering Department in MIT (T)
Aurangabad.
Prof. Sanjay Gadkari, Currently working
as Professor in Electronic Tele-
communication Engineering Department,
MIT (T), Aurangabad
Mr. Sachin S. Kangane, Currently pursuing
B.Tech (in Electronic & Tele-
Communication Engineering) from MIT (T)
Aurangabad Maharashtra.
WWW.OAIJSE.COM 16
