Dust and dirt accumulating on photovoltaic (PV) modules can reduce the amount of electricity they generate. This problem is particularly important in dry environments, where long periods without rainfall can allow significant soiling to develop.
This project will investigate whether soiling can be detected using routinely measured solar power data rather than dedicated soiling sensors. The student will use publicly available measurements from the DKA Solar Centre in Alice Springs, including PV power generation, solar irradiance and rainfall.
The student will develop a simple weather-normalised PV performance indicator and investigate how it changes during extended dry periods and following rainfall or known cleaning events. The project will provide hands-on experience working with real renewable-energy data and introduce the student to the process of developing and testing a research hypothesis.
School
Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering
Research Area
Photovoltaics | PV performance | Data analysis | Energy meteorology
Suitable for recognition of Work Integrated Learning (industrial training)?
No
- Research environment
- Expected outcomes
- Supervisory team
- Reference material/links
The student will work within the School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering at UNSW and will receive regular guidance on PV performance analysis, environmental data and scientific programming.
The project is primarily computational and will use publicly available measurements from the DKA Solar Centre in Alice Springs. The student will work with Python-based tools for data processing, visualisation and analysis and will gain experience with the way real research questions are developed and tested using observational data.
The scope is designed for an undergraduate student with basic programming experience; prior knowledge of PV soiling is not required.
- Develop a Python workflow to download, quality-control and analyse PV power, irradiance and rainfall data.
- Develop a simple normalised PV performance indicator that can be tracked through time.
- Investigate whether PV performance gradually decreases during extended dry periods.
- Examine whether rainfall or documented cleaning events result in measurable recovery in PV performance.
- Estimate simple soiling rates for selected periods and discuss the uncertainty and limitations of the approach.
- DKA Solar Centre – Alice Springs data and PV systems (https://dkasolarcentre.com.au/locations/alice-springs)