The impact of natural dust on outdoor PV panels: the performance analysis and short-term prediction

Abstract

This study focuses on the performance of PV modules, assessing the impact of dust in a suburban area of Bangladesh. Data was collected between December 2022 and February 2023 from two photovoltaic (PV) panels, one is kept clean and other one intentionally left dusty. The analysis is divided into two sections: performance analysis and prediction analysis of PV panels. The findings reveal that, dust significantly reduce energy output, with a reduction of 5.09%, 4.75% and 3.95% in December, January and February, respectively. Additionally, weather condition (sunny and rainy) influences the short circuit current of the PV modules. The long-term effect of dust accumulation on panel performance are also evident. Furthermore, in time series analysis, the LSTM model was trained using two months of data, and its prediction for short circuit current closely aligned with the experimental data, achieving low RMSE value of 6.28 and 11.46, respectively.