Flexible PV mounted on a fabric-covered vehicle shade in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: can natural motion prevent dust buildup?

Abstract

An array of flexible triangular PV modules was installed on a fabric car shade canopy in a car park in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The performance, estimated from temperature-corrected short circuit currents for each sub‑array on the four faces of the shade, were monitored for a period of six months in order to determine the performance degradation over time due to accumulation of dust. It was hypothesized that the natural motion of the fabric canopy due to the wind would cause the flexible modules to move, and this might in turn prevent the build‑up of dust on the modules.

In practice, the motion was not sufficient to remove the dust, the build up of which resulted in a performance degradation on all four faces, converging with time on around 60% of the peak recorded performance. Rare rainfall events observed during the measurement period did result in significant, albeit temporary, performance improvements.