Mars technology creates self-dusting solar panels (BBC)

By Pamela Rutherford
Reporter, BBC News

Self-cleaning technology developed for lunar and Mars missions could be used to keep terrestrial solar panels dust free

Dust deposits can reduce the efficiency of electricity generating solar panels by as much as 80%.

The self cleaning technology can repel dust when sensors detect concentrations on the panel's surface have reached a critical level.
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Sensors detect when dust concentrations reach a critical level and then an electric charge energises the material sending a dust-repelling wave across its surface.

Mazumder says that this can lift away as much as 90% cent of the dust in under two minutes and only uses a small amount of electricity
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11057771

Let's get this down to the consumer level. I've got solar panels on my house and the dust build up out here in the Southwest is... annoying. I can watch my output drop over the course of a month. I'd love to be able to hit a switch and knock the dust off, as opposed to climbing up on the roof with a broom.

Using a reverse osmosis filter to make sure the water is as pure as you can get it you can hook up a sprayer type system of PVC pipes to spray clean water onto the panels to clean them off.

Just a thought...

But the water out here in AZ is full of a lot of minerals, even the city stuff out of the tap. Hard water stains and residue are a constant. Not to mention the amount of dust in the air... which leads to lots and lots of spots.

It depends on the amount of minerals in the water but a reverse osmosis water filtering system can remove practically all the contaminants in water. I have one under the sink in my kitchen, Texas, and it gets everything out of the water - confirmed by a water tester. RO water is what they use at the car washes for the "spot free rinse." But they aren't cheap, mine was around $200 and I installed it myself (not hard to do). But your water may be more heavily laden with minerals that Dallas water so YMMV.

One other thought I had was to rig up a compressed air setup, using an air compressor... Just a thought.

Siloxane(s)* are silicones that are in Rain-X. Glycerol keeps water from beading up.

Mars really only has dust as a problem, and it's not very tough. There are no poop-filled birds on Mars, it doesn't rain, and I'd be surprised if what little mud there is, is able to travel very far. But in the deserts of Earth, dust is going to be only one of many problems.

Cleaning is simply going to have to be a part of solar PV upkeep. It will probably pay off in most large installations.

--d!
*I think they're called siloxanes; if you know, please let me know.

to learn about photocatalytic TiO2 coatings. These are aimed at removing bird poop, tree sap, etc.

Haven't seen them applied to self-cleaning solar installations yet, so there may be probelms I don't know about ...



(ETA: yes, it's siloxanes, or sometimes polysiloxanes -- same thing)

I would expect it to work less well here, but that's a guess.