Solar Energy 184 (2019) 195–201

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Solar Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/solener

Effect of dust cleaning on the enhancement of the power generation of a T

coastal PV-power plant at Zahrani Lebanon
⁎
Mohammad Hammouda, , Bassel Shokra, Ali Assia, Jaafar Hallala, Paul Khouryb
a
SDM Research Group, Department of Mechanical Engineering, International University of Beirut, BIU, 146404 Mazraa, Beirut, Lebanon
b
Lebanon Oil Installations, Zahrani, Lebanon

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In the last two decades, solar energy sources have gained a remarkable place among others and have proven that
Coastal region in Lebanon it is possible to utilize green energy to satisfy a part of the global demands of electrical power. In Lebanon, solar
Photovoltaic Photovoltaic (PV) systems are being used progressively. However, soiling and dust accumulation, on the surface
Dust of these panels, minimizes their efficiency. As a first of its kind in Lebanon, this paper presents the results from a
Cleaning
study conducted on the effectiveness of wet cleaning using a robot. This study is carried out on a part of a 1 MWp
Efficiency
solar power plant station in Zahrani, a coastal region in Lebanon. The robot was designed, manufactured, im-
plemented, and tested to clean the abovementioned station. The panels were cleaned in a period starting from
June 15th to September 30th, 2018. The generated power was collected on a daily basis and compared to the
generated power over the same period of 2017 without cleaning. The results showed that the cleaning procedure
was able to effectively minimize the effect of dust on the solar panel’s power output. Thus, an increase average of
32.27% in the power generation is obtained.

1. Introduction shows the evolution of PV installations, where it is revealed that only

The demand for electric energy has been monotonously and sub-
stantially increasing worldwide due to the growing industrial and
technological needs and to the exponential growth of the world popu-
lation. The worldwide electricity generation, based on the annual re-
ports of the International Energy Agency in 2017, was 24,255 TWh in
year 2015, where 66.3% is generated by fossil fuels, natural gas, and
coal. Other sources of electricity generation are Nuclear Energy (10.6%)
and Renewable Energy Sources including Hydro power source (23.1%).
In other words, the major reliance of power consumption is focused on
non-renewable sources, being rapidly depleted at an intolerable pace.
The shift to renewable energy sources is now a global aim, and these are
the hydro, solar, and wind sources. Our focus in this study is the solar
energy source, particularly Photovoltaic energy. The annual world
production of electricity by PV panels as per the annual reports of the
International Energy Agency in 2016, was recorded to be 303 GW by
the end of the year 2016, in which this year witnessed a 75 GW increase
from that produced in 2015, revealing the remarkable growth of solar
power production and the divergence of all the major countries of the
world toward it.
Solar energy production has grown recently into becoming a key
source of electricity and the one with a very promising future. Fig. 1
18 years ago this energy source was not even worth mentioning,
whereas in year 2016, the net installed capacity was 303 GW. This solar
energy is being used both domestically and industrially, where the
latter, due to its large capacity, uses fields with many PV panels
grouped into arrays.
Efficiency is an essential factor when it comes to the different
characteristics of PV solar panels. The nominal efficiency of PV solar
panels ranges between 15% and 25%, which represents the maximum
power produced compared to that received by the sunlight. In addition,
other factors affect the efficiency of a solar panel such as dirt and dust
accumulation that may cause an additional loss in the energy produc-
tion. The issue of efficiency is perhaps the most major obstacle against
solar energy production.
Dirt can be in the form of either bird droppings, especially on the
coastal sites such as in Zahrani station in Lebanon, or as dust, either
aerosol or construction cement powder, hardened due to the exposure
to moisture at night by dew and drying up during the day. If this dirt is
neglected for a long enough time, it may cause permanent stains. Dirt
accumulation is a major factor in minimizing the efficiency of a solar
panel.
Previous studies (Al Shehri et al., 2016; Figgis et al., 2018) have
shown that a layer of hardened dust with stains can reduce the power

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: mohamad.hammoud@liu.edu.lb (M. Hammoud).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2019.04.005
Received 2 August 2018; Received in revised form 28 March 2019; Accepted 1 April 2019
Available online 04 April 2019
0038-092X/ © 2019 International Solar Energy Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
M. Hammoud, et al.
Fig. 1. The Evolution of PV Panels Installations (GWPDC) between 2000 and 2016 as per the annual reports of the International Energy Agency in 2016.
output of a PV panel as much as 30%. The factor of dust and soiling
depends on the region where the panels are installed. A region with dry
weather and a high aerosol loading in the air would have a remarkable
drop in efficiency due to dust and soiling on the panel (Gholami et al.,
2018; Saidan et al., 2016). A study in India done by (Garg, 1974),
showed that the transmittance of glass panels after 30 days of exposure
decreased from 90% to 30% for horizontal panels. Another study per-
formed in the USA by the University of California about the effect of
soiling on several PV sites in the California, which has 47% of the entire
PV panels installed in the USA, as the study claims, showed that, over
an average of 145-days summer drought, the result was a 7.4% loss in
efficiency (Mejia and Kleissl, 2013). For a 15% efficient PV panel the
soiling losses over a 145-days drought would decrease the efficiency to
13.89%. The study concluded that if an automated cleaning system was
installed to clean the sites regularly, the site would gain an annual 9.8%
of its power yield. This was an example about a region with low aerosol
loading and averagely frequent rainfall, knowing that rain almost re-
stores the cleanliness of a panel in the cases where the soil isn’t har-
dened enough due to long exposures to the sun. Another study, per-
formed by Boston University, observed a 24% drop in efficiency over a
month of not cleaning the PV panels in Lovington, New Mexico, a re-
latively dry state including desert areas (Sayyah et al., 2013). Tradi-
tional attempts to maneuver this issue are routinely cleaning operations
(Fathi et al., 2017; Jiang et al., 2016). A study performed by Deb and
Brahmbhatt (2018) showed that a significant increase in energy yield of
9.05% can be obtained by cleaning a rooftop installation of solar panels
in India using a free-water robotic device.
A study at a solar power facility in Doha, Qatar done by (Guo et al.,
2015), revealed the major effects on efficiency caused by soiling and
dust accumulation on the panels by performing a comparison between
the power outputs of panel arrays of varying washing time intervals
with that of a never washed array over a period as shown in Fig. 2. It is
observed that the greatest power loss occurred on the low wash array,
which after 234 days produced only 44% of the DC power of the
weekly-washed array. It was also observed that even after the 234 days’
period, dust kept accumulating more, which shows that the pro-
ductivity of the panel will keep degrading till it reaches a level where it
becomes practically obsolete. The longer the soil and dust were kept
without washing, the harder it became to remove them completely.
Hence, it is clear how imperative cleaning the PV panels is to satisfy
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Solar Energy 184 (2019) 195–201
the growing worldwide need of solar energy (Khonkar et al., 2014;
Parrott et al., 2018). However, the problem with routinely cleaning
operations is the demand for manpower, which can be a problem for
facilities with large arrays since it will be an extra expense that would
reduce the profit margin acquired by the increased efficiency of the
panels.
As said before, Lebanon started shyly many years ago investing in
the solar energy generation field. A low number of PV power plants
have been implemented by the government; one of them is the Zahrani
power plant of nominal energy production of 1 MWp where the gen-
erated power is used for the operation of the Oil refinery. Since no
studies concerning the soiling effect on the power generation are done
in Lebanon, this paper aims to shed light on this topic. A comparison
will be drawn between the data collected in 2017 of the plant never
cleaned and the data collected in 2018 of the plant being cleaned on a
weekly basis.
This paper is structured as follows: Section 2 consists of the meth-
odology used to clean the station where the design and manufacturing
of the robotic cleaning device are also presented. Section 3 is reserved
to the data collection and analysis. Section 4 draws the conclusion of
the paper.
2. Methodology
2.1. Zahrani solar power plant
In Lebanon, there are two governmental PV-power plants, one lo-
cated in the suburb of Beirut called, Beirut Rivers Solar Station (BRSS),
and the other one located in the south of Lebanon at Zahrani Oil
Installations in Lebanon (http://www.leboilinst.com/) each of 1 MWp
capacity. However, there are many other stations for personal use.
The cleaning process will be run at Zahrani station. The PV panels
used are the multicrystalline solar module known for their high effi-
ciency (16%) and their ability to withstand challenging environmental
conditions. The modules are of 2 × 1 m2 area producing a nominal
power of 310 W, grouped in two in a column with a tilt angle of 9°
facing due south. The span length of the panels is four meters. There are
3225 solar panels at the site located at two areas, the refinery
(784.92 kWp) and tanks (307.52 kWp), together adding up to
1092.44 kWp on-grid power generation station as shown in Figs. 3 and
M. Hammoud, et al.
Fig. 2. PV energy production decrease due to soiling (Guo et al. (2015)).
4, respectively. The tank area is chosen to be studied taking into con-
sideration that it is closer to the administration building of the facility
and going by the facility’s manager suggestion. The plant is made up of
992 solar panels connected to 5 inverters with each inverter having 3
Maximum Power Point Trackers (MPPTs).
It is worth noted that the power station is located near the oil re-
finery which causes smog and air pollution. Oil refineries emit about
100 chemicals every day. They emit many gases like Sulphur dioxide
(SO2), Nitrogen oxide (NO2), Carbon dioxide, Carbon monoxide,
Methane, Dioxins, Hydrogen fluoride, Chlorine, Benzene and others.
These types of dusts need to be cleaned through wet and not dry pro-
cedure. This will be taken into consideration while designing the de-
vice.
2.2. Cleaning device
To remove accumulated dust on the panels, water based robotic
device on-wheels was designed to fit the structural constraints, manu-
factured and tested at the tanks area of Zahrani power station. The
device is on four wheels, two of which are equipped with DC motors of
Fig. 3. Overview of the PV power station at Zahrani refinery Area (http://www.itgholding.com/affiliate/5/ecosys/).
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specified voltage-torque operated by an Arduino Uno board and 3H-
bridge microcontrollers to control the direction and speed of rotation.
At full length, the wheel-to-wheel length is 4.0 m, and at full foldability,
is approximately 2 m long. Two control boxes made of Aluminum are
designed at each side of the device. One contains the electric control
circuit, a motored wheel, and a follower wheel. The other one has no
microcontroller boards but has the motor responsible to rotating the
brush. Two batteries divided among the two boxes for weight balance
and space optimization are used. In addition to the motor and follower
wheels that are set on the path of motion, side wheels are needed to
maintain the stability and resistance against vibration of the system. For
that purpose, horizontal wheels at the bottom of the box are designed.
The optimal design requires a cylindrical roller brush that can be
inserted at both ends to the boxes. However, such a brush was not found
locally. To maneuver around this logistical problem, a temporary brush
was constructed using Polyamide bars, joint and attached to the truss,
and having rubber bands attached to it along the whole length of the
bars. The attachment to the truss was obtained by the use of three eye
bolt bearings, which allow rotation but restrict vibration in the trans-
versal direction.
M. Hammoud, et al.
Fig. 4. Overview of the PV power station at Zahrani tanks area (http://www.itgholding.com/affiliate/5/ecosys/).
Fig. 5. A diagram of the circuit used to operate the robotic device, consisting of an Arduino Uno board, three L298N H-Bridge boards, three 24v DC motors equipped
with Gearboxes, and two 12v Lithium rechargeable batteries in Series.
The circuit shown in Fig. 5 consists of an Arduino Uno board, three
L298N H-bridge motor controller boards, three 24v geared DC motors
(motion motors have a 10:1 reduction ratio, while the brush motor has
a 5:1 reduction ratio), and two 12v Rechargeable Lithium DC batteries.
The batteries are connected in series to give 24v to the circuit. The
motors, having a nominal power output at 15 W, must not produce a
torque greater than the sliding factor for the friction force on the
wheels. The static coefficient of friction between rubber and glass is
close to 2.0 for dry glass and ranges between 0.3 and 0.6 for wet glass
(Tuononen, 2016). For a mass of 20 kg, the normal force on each side is
around 98 (N) (Both wheels), while the sliding threshold of the friction
force-with a minimum value friction coefficient of 0.3 is 29.4 N. The
motors thus, have to produce a torque less than this value. Torque ca-
libration will be performed by Arduino programming code. The three
L298N boards are grouped in parallel and supplied 24v each directly
from the batteries. One of the L298N boards supplies the Arduino mi-
crocontroller board with 5v through its 5v-regulator pin, and the Ar-
duino board gives commands through its pins to the input (IN) and
enable (EN) pins of the L298N boards, each therefore operating a motor
through its output pins.
The program modulates the H-bridges to give a ratio of 150/
255 = 0.588 of the maximum power output. Of 15 W maximum power
output, this code will thus yield 8.8 W for each motor. Since the power
is the product of the torque and the rotational speed, the speed pro-
duced will be measured at the implementation phase and the torque
determined by the equation to check whether it fits the constraint of
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sliding.
A primary prototype of this robotic device was constructed and
experimented on the solar panels array at the tank area in Zahrani.
Fig. 6 shows the assembly of the prototype focusing on different parts of
the prototype.
The overall weight of the machine was approximately 20 kg. The
rotational speed of each Motor was measured to be approximately
80 rpm, which, by the power equationP = T × ω = 8.82 (W) , yields a
torque of T = 1.05 (N·m). At a radius of 6 cm for each wheel, the force
exerted by this torque on the surface of the glass is thus
F = T / r = 17.5 (N) , less than the threshold of sliding at 29.4 (N). Thus,
the torque provided by the motors is safe to operate without sliding and
is enough to surpass all bumps due to the frames of the consecutive
panels during operation.
During the testing of the robotic device, we concluded that the
designed side wheels were effective in maintaining the stability of the
machine during operation and in resisting any possible twist that might
occur due to slight synchronization differences in the motors or due to a
difference in external forces on a side. The buckling effect on the truss
system was within an acceptable range and therefore not seen as a
problem. The cost of the robotic device did not exceed 650$. Table 1
lists the detailed budget of the robotic device.
2.3. Cleaning procedure
The cleaning procedure was run over all PV panels of the Tank area
M. Hammoud, et al. Solar Energy 184 (2019) 195–201

Fig. 6. Assembly of the cleaning device with the brush and the water hose installed on the solar panels array (a), side follower wheels (b), top view of the control box
that contains the brush motor (c), control box that contains the microcontroller circuit (g), follower wheel assembly (e), assembly of the truss calibration mechanism
(f), and the brush assembly showing links to motor and eye-bolt bearing support (g).

Table 1 the early morning in order to take the highest benefit of the cleaning
Cleaning device budget in American Dollars. day. The cleaning process of the 54 strings of PV panels would take
Item Count Cost by Item ($) Total Cost ($)
generally around 4 h.

Aluminum LS 60 60
Rubber Wheels 2 Sets of 2 7 14 3. Data collection and analysis
15 W Motor 3 23 69
Gearbox 10:1 2 30 60
3.1. Power performance
Gearbox 5:1 1 30 30
12 V Batteries 2 11 22
Battery Charger 1 13 13 It is worth noted that the inauguration of the solar power plant was
Arduino Uno 1 10 10 in 2016. However, the collection of the data started on January 2017.
H-Bridge 3 3 9 Till June 2018, this station was never cleaned. During this long period,
Eye-Bolt Bearing 8 7 56
1 m Polyamide Bar 4 3 12
the dust and dirt hardened due to the exposure to moisture at night by
Rubber brush 1 45 45 dew and drying up during the day. Since this was neglected for a long
Miscellaneous Costs LS 30 30 enough time, it caused permanent stains as shown in Fig. 7. Fig. 8
Manufacturing LS 220 220 shows the difference between a cleaned panel using the manufactured
Total cost 650 machine and another un-cleaned one.
To study the performance of the device and the effect of cleaning on
the power generation performance, the tank area station was cleaned in
of Zahrani power plant. The 992 panels are grouped into 54 strings of a period starting June 15th to September 30th, 2018. The results were
17, 18, and 20 modules. They are connected to 5 inverters each having collected thanks to the software used by ECOsys company (http://
3 MPPTs. Panels are cleaned using the device during the following www.itgholding.com/affiliate/5/ecosys/) at the facility which moni-
dates: June 15, 29, July 13, 27, August 10, 24, and September 7, 21. tors the PV panels’ power production continuously. The power collected
During this chosen period, no significant rainfall happened. As it is over the abovementioned period will be compared to that collected
known, Lebanon is located on the Mediterranean Sea where no sig- over the same period in 2017 where no cleaning was applied.
nificant rainfall occurs during summer season (June till October). Note that the solar production in two consecutive years i.e, 2017
Remark: During the first cleaning day, a heavy cleaning using the and 2018, will not be the same due to weather variation, different solar
robotic device was run twice to ensure the removal of the stains ac- activity, panel aging, starting conditions, etc. To take this variability
cumulated on the PV panels as shown in Fig. 7 on the panel to the right. into account, the data collected from the refinery area of capacity
Concerning the use of water, a well was drilled for the refinery long 784.92 kWp over 2017 and 2018 were compared. The refinery area is
time ago before the construction of the solar power station. Thus, the the second section of the power plant which was never cleaned in both
water needed to clean the tank area power station is available abun- years. A decrease of 3% in power generation during 2018 was found
dantly. Note that, the cleaning process of the panels starts every time in compared to that generated in 2017. Thus, to make the comparison

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M. Hammoud, et al.
Fig. 7. Dirt Accumulation observed on the panes of the Tanks area in June 2018.
Fig. 8. Comparison between a cleaned PV panel (right) and un-cleaned PV
panel (left).
between the generated power from the Tank area with and without
cleaning reliable, the produced power while using the robot should be
divided by 97% = (100–3)% to account for varying production be-
tween 2017 and 2018.
The data illustrated in Fig. 9 presents a clear picture of losses in
power generation in the case of uncleaned panels of the tank area
power station. The accumulation of dust and dirt is the major parameter
of these losses since as it is shown in Fig. 9, the days just after cleaning
(■), the power generation jumps a big scale compared to the previous
days whenever cleaning is applied.
Hence, one cannot neglect the effect of stain on the power genera-
tion of the PV panels. This is due to the huge presence of seagull since
the station is near the sea. The presence of this kind of birds is almost
Fig. 9. Comparison between the power generated by the Tank area of the power
plant with and without cleaning.
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Solar Energy 184 (2019) 195–201
due to waste dumps in the region.
The fluctuation in the power generation shown in Fig. 9 is due to the
fact that the facility power generation is shut down whenever electricity
is on. In Lebanon, the electricity is not 24/7. The power supply varies
from 10 to 14 h during 24 h supplied as per intervals of 4–6 h. Thus, the
PV station would generate power at the peak time i.e between 10 a.m.
and 2 p.m. once every two consecutive days. This would surely affect
the amount of power generated during one day over two. It is worth
noted that the data provided by ECOsys company is only the power
generated by the PV station and used to operate the Oil refinery facility
when the grid is off. When the grid is on, no data will be collected.
To more understand the data illustrated in Fig. 9, the power gen-
erated by the uncleaned panels is normalized to that of the cleaned
panels considered as reference. The daily output power of the un-
cleaned panels is divided to the daily output power of the cleaned pa-
nels and represented in Fig. 10. This figure presents a clear picture of
losses that could be expected as a result of not cleaning the panels. The
days just after cleaning can be clearly seen where the losses are at their
maximum values.
Fig. 11 shows the percentage of power generation increase all over
the period of test. This percentage is calculated using the following
equation:
Pun − cleaned − Pcleaned
% Increase = × 100
Pun − cleaned
where Pun-cleaned is the power generated before cleaning in 2017.
Pcleaned is the power generated after cleaning in 2018.
As clearly shown in Fig. 11, the percentage of increase is really high
the day just after cleaning. It exceeds 93.27% in September 22. The
average of increase during the period of test from June 15th through
September 30th is around 32.27%.
120
100
80
60
40
20
Power with cleaning Power without cleaning
Fig. 10. Normalized output power of the Tank area of the power plant with and
without cleaning.
M. Hammoud, et al.
Fig. 11. Percentage of increase in the power generated by the Tank area of the
power plant after dust cleaning between June 15th and September 28th 2018.
3.2. Economic benefit
Economically speaking, the cleaning process results in an increase of
24,944 kW power generated during the period of experiments
(3 months and a half) compared to the same period in 2017 without
cleaning. In Lebanon, a kW power production costs 23 cents (Berjawi
et al., 2017). Thus, the total cost of the power generation increase is
around 5737$. The cost of the cleaning process was estimated to 1450$
where 650$ constitutes the cost of the cleaning device and the rest is
the worker’s wages per 8 days of cleaning and for maintenance purpose.
None mentioned since it was an experiment period; 2 labors were
employed to move the robot from a string to another during the
cleaning process. As a result, the pure benefit in power generation due
to cleaning is estimated to 4287$.
4. Conclusion
A study about the effect of dust and dirt accumulation on the pro-
ductivity of the solar panels at Zahrani Area in Lebanon is performed in
this paper. The cleaning procedure is done through a robotic On-wheels
device designed and manufactured to fit the structural constraints since
the station is already operational. Cleaning periods are run during
8 days, once every two weeks, over the period of June 15th to
September 30th. The robot was able to clean correctly the PV panels of
the Tank area of Zahrani station of capacity 300 kWp. The daily power
generated during the test period in 2018 of the cleaned station is
compared to that collected over the same period without cleaning in
2017. The percentage of increase due to the cleaning of the accumu-
lated dust is calculated on a daily basis where significant values are
observed. The average of increase is around 32.27% during the period
of test. Economically, the cleaning process has a pure benefit of 4287$
over the mentioned period.
Cleaning the panels and collecting real data from Zahrani site gave a
clear and evident insight of how much dust accumulation affects and
limits the production of power from solar panels. This loss when
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Solar Energy 184 (2019) 195–201
weighted over huge facilities of a considerable amount of MWs gener-
ated would count for a huge loss in production. Finally, this paper
highlighted the effect of dust and dirt accumulation on power genera-
tion in a new country, Lebanon.
Acknowledgements
Authors of the paper acknowledge the support and help of the
management at Zahrani Oil Installations facility, especially Mr. Zyad Al
Zein, the assisting General Manager of the facility. ECOsys Manager,
Mr. George Giha contribution is highly appreciated too, for he was
there in the meetings no matter his busy schedule. His contribution in
the data collection program at Zahrani was pivotal in the results.
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