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Virtual Reality Simulation of Dust Accumulation on the Surface of Solar Panel

Conference Paper · December 2017

DOI: 10.1109/ICCSEC.2017.8446946

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2017 International Conference on Computer Systems, Electronics and Control (ICCSEC)

Virtual Reality Simulation of Dust Accumulation on the Surface of Solar Panel

Jian Ni, Mei Yang, Yingtao Jiang

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Las Vegas, NV, USA
Emails: nij1@unlv.nevada.edu, mei.yang@unlv.edu, yingtao.jiang@unlv.edu

Abstract—Dust accumulation on solar photovoltaic (PV) panels
has been one of the major concerns, as the accumulated dust
on the surface of PV module can significantly decrease the
amount of solar irradiance reaching the cells. In the literature,
there have been quite a few studies to build analytical or
empirical models to understand the impacts of dust on solar
power generation, but few studies have been conducted to
“observe” and thus model the process of how dust gets to solar
cells in the first place and appreciate the major ambient factors
that could impact dust accumulation. This paper attempts to
bridge that gap by building a virtual reality (VR) model that
immerses users into an environment surrounded by solar
panels; all perceived environmental factors, such as the
sunlight illumination, external force on dust particles, have
been considered to render the dust accumulation effects over
any time scale of choice. The real-world environmental data,
over the course of 30 years, obtained from NREL, are fit into
the VR model, and the dust accumulation effects can be
visualized. This work clearly demonstrates how latest VR
technologies can play a central role in manipulating and
displaying a large set of long-term, complex, incomplete, and
irregular data.
Keywords- Solar Panel, Dust Accumulation, Virtual Reality,
Simulation.
I. INTRODUCTION
The rapid advances of both hardware and software in
recent years has promoted the utilization of virtual reality
(VR) technology in many practical fields. According to
2017 VR/AR innovation report from VRDC, though most
(78%) of VR developers still mainly focus on game or
entertainment, a considerable percent (27%) begin to focus
on education. Meanwhile, interests about industrial design
and medical applications are also rising. Examples can be
shown as VR used in dental education [1], VR simulator for
robotic surgery [2], Jaguar Land Rover virtual reality center
in UK, and so on. However, the above works are mainly
focusing on utilizing the benefits of providing a friendlier
interaction experience for users in VR environment. The
benefit of aiding with understanding via visualizing
complex ideas or numeric model hasn’t been much
exploited.
Solar photovoltaic (PV) panels have been widely used to
supply renewable energy to home and business. One of the
major concerns of PV panel efficiency loss is the dust
accumulation on the surface of PV panels [14][15] which
can significantly decrease the amount of solar irradiation
reaching the cells. In the literature, there exist several papers
focused on studying analytical or empirical models to
understand the impacts of dust on solar power generation.
However, few studies are conducted to “observe” and thus
model the process of how dust gets to solar cells in the first
place and investigate the major environmental factors that
could impact dust accumulation. This paper aims to bridge
the gap by building a reasonable PV solar panel model in
VR environment to simulate the dust accumulation process
considering the major environmental factors.
To design the VR model of solar panels with the effect
of dust accumulation considered, we need understand how
the performance of a solar panel is affected by surrounding
environment parameters. The following aspects are the key
to understand the solar panel performance model: 1) solar
panel cell equivalent circuit model; 2) relation of irradiance
on panel surface and PV panel’s efficiency; 3) the impact of
environment parameters such as temperature, wind speed,
sun position, date, location and so on; 4) the statistical
amount of accumulated dust, how dust accumulated, and the
effect of accumulated dust on the panel.
De Soto came up with the five-parameter model for
modeling solar cells [3]. Mohammed Asim demonstrated
how to calculate and simulate the five-parameter model with
given solar panel parameters provided by the manufacture
manual [4]. An and Kumar showed how irradiance and on-
board temperature affect solar panel performance [5]. Dirk
Goossens showed a monthly statistical result of the amount
of accumulated dust over 2 years in a desert region [6]. Neil
S. Beattie came up with a practical model about how dust
will deposit on a panel surface [7]. Ahmad Y. Al-hasan
stated a relationship between PV panel’s efficiency and the
amount of accumulated dust on the panel surface [8].
These authors and their works offered a clear numeric
expression for all the four aspects concerned. Thus, a
theoretical integrated model of solar panel with dust
accumulation can be derived out. However, to implement
the theoretical model in VR environment, many rendering
technologies need be considered, such as implementation of
light illumination, algorithms for shadow mapping and
surface texture mapping, and so on.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section II
presents the integrated theoretical model in more details.
Section III describes the VR simulation model built in Unity
platform with those rendering technologies. The longitude

978-1-5386-3573-5/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE 425 Dalian, China•Dec 25-27, 2017

and latitude of three major cities with their corresponding dI dI 1
monthly climate data from NREL [16] are considered in the  (3)
VR model. The simulation results of the chosen city based dV SC dV I I SC ,V 0 RSH ,ref
on solar panel electrical data and monthly statistical amount
of accumulated dust from Dirk Goossens’s paper [6] are
presented to show the real-time performance of the solar For open circuit, I 0,V VOC ,ref , substitute it into
panel in VR environment. In Section IV, discussion and Eqn. (1), we get
conclusion of the results will be made. VOC , ref
VOC ,ref
II. SOLAR PANEL AND DUST ACCUMULATION MODEL 0 I L  I 0 [e D
 1]  (4)
RSH
In this section, we first review the derivation of the solar When reaching the maximum power transfer, we have
panel and dust accumulation models then show how to
integrate these models to obtain the specific model I I nom ,V Vnom (5)
parameters in VR environment. dP d ( IV )
A. Solar Cell Equivalent Circuit dV dV
nom nom
Based on De Soto and Mohammed Asim’s work [3][4], (6)
five parameters are identified to calculate the output current, dI
voltage and power of the equivalent circuit. These five
I nom  Vnom 0
dV I I nom,V Vnom
parameters are:
x Modified ideality factor D ; where
V  I *RS
x Light current I L ; I0 1
 e D

x Diode reverse saturation current I0 ; dI D RSH
V  I * RS
(7)
x Series resistanceRS ; dV I 0 RS R
1 e D
 S
x Shunt resistance RSH ; D RSH
Assume the on-board temperature is 25 ć and the From Eqns. (2)-(7),
accepted irradiance on board is 1000W/m2, which are the D ref , I L,ref , I 0,ref , RS ,ref , RSH ,ref can all be derived out.
reference temperature, Tob,ref , and the reference irradiance, When on-board temperature and accepted irradiance
Gref , respectively. For Fig. 1, we obtain change, the following equations hold [3]
Tob
V  I *RS
V  I * RS D D ref (8)
I I L  I 0 [e D
 1]  (1) Tob,ref
RSH
1 Eg Eg
Then separately considering short-circuited open circuit (  )
T k Tob ref Tob
as below: I0 I 0,ref [ ob ]3 e (9)
For short-circuited, I I SC,ref ,V 0 , substituting it Tob,ref
into Eqn. (1), we get Gacpt
IL [ I L ,ref  D Isc (Tob  Tob,ref )] (10)
Gref
RS RS ,ref (11)
Gref
RSH RSH ,ref (12)
Gacpt
where
Eg
1  0.000267(Tob  Tob,ref ) (13)
Fig. 1. Five-parameter equivalent model [3] E g ,ref
I SC , ref *RS In the above equations, K is the Boltzmann’s constant;
I SC,ref * RS E g is the material energy band gap; Gacpt is the accepted
I SC,ref I L  I 0 [e D
 1]  (2)
RSH irradiance on board;Tob is the temperature on board. Other
parameters including I SC,ref , VOC ,ref , I nom , Vnom , Pnom

426
and D Isc , D Voc , D Pnom are typically given in solar panel Tob 3.12  0.25G  0.0899Tob,ref  1.3WS
(18)
electrical data sheet as Table I.
 230  273
Table I. SunPower E-Series Commercial Solar Panel E20-435 Manual Here, WS is the wind speed.
[12]
C. Dust Accumulation
Electrical Data
SPR-E20- SPR-E19- According to recent research about solar panels [14][15],
Parameters efficiency loss of the solar panel due to the accumulated
435-COM 410-COM
Nominal Power (Pnom) 435W 410W dust on panel surface has been a great concern.
Based on Ahmad’s work [8], the diameter of sand
Power Tolerance +/-5% +/-5% particles is ~ 6.4um, density of sand is ~ 2.65g/cm3. And
Avg. Panel Efficiency 20.3% 19.1% sand particles can be viewed as very large compared to the
incidence light wavelength. Thus, a conclusion can be
Rated Voltage (Vmpp) 72.9V 72.9V drawn that any irradiance cast upon the covered area will be
Rated Current (Impp) 5.97A 5.62A removed, which leads to the loss of panel efficiency.
Assuming the panel is laid flat, the actual irradiance is
Open-Circuit Voltage (Voc) 85.6V 85.3V calculated as
Short-Circuit Current (Isc) 6.43A 6.01A Gacpt G(1  A) (19)
1000V UL & 1000 V where G is the global irradiance cast upon the solar panel
Max. System Voltage
IEC
surface and A is the area percentage covered by dust.
Maximum Series Fuse 15A Even if the surface is tilt, the panel efficiency of the
Power Temp Coef. -0.35%/ć covered area is still affected, which can be derived out as
below:
Voltage Temp Coef. -235.5mV/ć
M 1 90  T tilt
Current Temp Coef. 2.6mA/ć A(T tilt ) Sr 2 [  tan ]
4 90  T 2
SUr 3 tan tilt

Thus, the five-parameter model can be derived. 3 2

(20)
B. Irradiance and Related Environment Parameters Ahmad’s work [8] also gives the relationship between
The global horizontal irradiance is a combination of the normalized panel efficiency and accumulated dust as
direct beam irradiance and diffuse horizontal irradiance as shown in Fig. 2.
below [13]:
GH Gdir * cos T zenith  Gdif (14)
where T zenith is called zenith angle, which is related to date,
location of the panel, and the time in the day, given below
[5]:
cos T zenith sin(T lat ) * sin(T dayth ) 
(15)
cos(T lat ) * cos(T dayth ) * cos(T hourth)
where T dayth is related to the date,
360 284  dayth
T dayth 23.45 * sin( * 360) (16) Fig. 2 Variation of normalized efficiency with accumulated dust [8]
180 365
T hourth is related to the time, In Fig. 2, the straight line indicates that the normalized
efficiency decreases linearly before the amount of
accumulated dust reaching 1.5 g/m2, which fits the
T hourth 15 * (12  hourth) (17) assumption in Ahmad’s work [8] that the accumulated dust
distributes on panel surface as a single layer of spherical
and T lat
is the latitude of the location.
particles. However, the experimental data points in Fig. 2
The temperature collected is usually the temperature on show that the normalized efficiency decays slower than
the ground. Based on Anandkumar’s work [5], Tob can be Ahmad’s assumption after 1.5 g/m2. Thus, a better model is
expressed in ć as needed.
Neil’s work [7] points out that lower layer of sand
clusters can support upper layer of sand particles as Fig. 3.

427

Fig. 3 First layer particles support an upper layer [7]
Thus, according to Neil’s work [7], for multi-layer dust
model, a modified equation of the covered area can be
shown as:
dA
1  A o A 1  e M
dM
III. SIMULATION AND RESULT
The VR simulation model of solar panels with the effect
of dust accumulation is developed in Unity platform [17]
and demonstrated using HTC Vive VR system. The derived
theoretical models of PV panels are coded into C# scripts to
support the calculation of the real-time changes of the model
parameters.
For the solar cell equivalent circuit model, the solar
panel cell will be considered as silicon in our work. Thus,
the energy band gap is chosen as E g ,ref 1.121eV . The
solar panel electrical data from Table I will be used to
calculate the solar panel output current I, voltage V, and
power P in VR environment.
We consider three typical locations (Las Vegas, Chicago,
New York City) with different climate conditions. The
environment data of the three locations with corresponding
monthly average climate data from 1961 to 1990 are input
to the VR model (including latitude, longitude, wind speed,
maximum and minimum temperature on the ground,
maximum and minimum direct beam irradiance, maximum
and minimum diffuse irradiance, etc.). Another input is the
monthly average amount of accumulated dust over 2 years.
For the three locations, three different dust covering rates
are input respectively.
Fig. 4 From up to down, normal beam, global, diffuse irradiance [9]
The real-time temperature on the ground, the direct
beam irradiance, and the diffuse irradiance are modeled as
sinusoidal curves since only statistical historical data of
these three parameters are found from NREL. And no
irradiance will be read at night.
The actual normal beam, global, and diffuse irradiances
can be shown as Fig. 4. Thus, it’s still reasonable to fit them
into half period sinusoid functions.
If the solar panel has a tilt angle T tilt 30 (which is
D
the tilt angle used for this work), the incidence light angle
can be assumed as T ince 90  T tilt 60 . Thus, the
D D
global irradiance on the tilt surface can be modified as:
G (Gdir * cos T zenith  Gdif ) * cos 60 D (22)
For the dust accumulation model, substituting
T tilt 30 into Eqn. (20), a modified expression of
D
covered area can be derived.
(21)
3M
A(30 D ) 2.309 (23)
4 Ur
The accumulated dust will be considered as multiple
layers. Thus, combining Eqns. (21) and (23), the modified
equation for covered area on tilt surface should be:
3M
 2.309 M
4 Ur

A(30 ) 1  e
D
1 e (24) 4.897
With the new equation derived out, a prediction can be
made that the decay of the panel efficiency versus the
increase of the amount of accumulated dust will be slower
than the one shown in Fig. 2 [8].
The 3D solar panel model built in Unity Platform is
shown in Fig. 5.
The output efficiency is the most critical parameter
concerned when judging the performance of the panel,
which is calculated as
Power
eff *100% (25)
G * Panelarea
Choosing Las Vegas as the location, August 1 st as the
date, 12:00 pm as the time, variations of normalized
efficiency and covered area versus the amount of
accumulated dust are demonstrated as Fig. 6 according to
Eqns. (24) and (25).
Fig. 7 shows the normalized efficiency of multi-layer
dust model compared with Ahmad’s work.
Fig. 5 Solar panel model built in VR environment
428

(a)
(b)
Fig. 6 Variation of normalized efficiency and dust coverage with
accumulated dust based on modified model
Fig. 7 Comparison of the normalized efficiency between multilayer model
and single layer model
In Fig.7, the normalized efficiency of multilayer model
decays slower than single layer model, which is due to that
multilayer model covers smaller area than single layer
model with the same amount of accumulated dust.
A more visible change on the solar panel surface with
different percentage of dust coverage can be seen from Fig.
8. A more immersive 3D view of the real-time data change
can be observed from HTC Vive goggle.
429
(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 8 Solar panel with different dust coverage: (a) 5% coverage; (b) 20%
coverage; (c) 80% coverage.
IV. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Current literature indicates that virtual reality does
provide another feasible method in many fields [1][2][10].
This paper demonstrates an instance of building and
simulating a solar panel model with dust accumulation in
VR environment. The simulation results of the chosen city
based on solar panel electrical data and monthly statistical
data of accumulated dust are presented to show the real-time
performance of the solar panel in VR environment. The
built VR solar panel model provides a convenient way for
designers to analyze the important panel performance
parameters. With the further advances of hardware and
software, VR will play a more important role in design and
analysis of solar panels.
The VR platform, Unity, shows its benefits to visualize
complex models and to help uncover some unexpected tiny
changes among dynamic, irregular, and long-term data. This
tool is powerful in supporting GUI development. However,
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT photovoltaic panel's efficiency and amount of sand dust accumulated
The authors would like to thank NREL for providing the on their surface,” International Journal of Sustainable Energy, vol.
climate data of Las Vegas, Chicago and New York City. 24, pp. 187-197, Feb. 2007.
This work was supported in part by the National Science [9] P. Ineichen, “Comparison of eight clear sky broadband models
against 16 independent data banks,” Solar Energy, vol. 80, pp. 468-
Foundation under Grant No. IIA-1301726. 478, Apr. 2006.
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