Air Pollution Stifling Solar Energy Production

Global solar energy production is taking a major hit due to air pollution and dust.

According to a new study, airborne particles and their accumulation on solar cells are cutting energy output by more than 25% in certain parts of the world. 

The regions hardest hit are also those investing the most in solar energy installations: China, India and the Arabian Peninsula.

The study appears online on June 23 in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, Science Daily reported.

Michael Bergin, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Duke University and lead author of the study, along with colleagues at the Indian Institute of Technology-Gandhinagar and the University of Wisconsin at Madison, measured the decrease in solar energy gathered by the IITGN's solar panels as they became dirtier over time.

The data showed a 50% jump in efficiency each time the panels were cleaned after being left alone for several weeks.

The researchers also sampled the grime to analyze its composition, revealing that 92% were dust while the remaining fraction was composed of carbon and ion pollutants from human activity. 

While this may sound like a small amount, light is blocked more efficiently by smaller manmade particles than by natural dust. As a result, the human contributions to energy loss are much greater than those from dust.

"You might think you could just clean the solar panels more often, but the more you clean them, the higher your risk of damaging them," Bergin said.

Using his earlier work on air pollutants in India as a base, he created an equation that accurately estimates the amount of sunlight blocked by different compositions of solar panel dust and pollution buildup.

But grimy buildup on solar panels isn't the only thing blocking sunlight—the ambient particles in the air also have a screening effect.

For the half of the sun-blocking equation, Bergin turned to Drew Shindell, professor of climate sciences at Duke and an expert in using the NASA GISS Global Climate Model.

Because the climate model already accounts for the amount of the sun's energy blocked by different types of airborne particles, it was not a stretch to estimate the particles' effects on solar energy. 

The NASA model also estimates the amount of particulate matter deposited on surfaces worldwide, providing a basis for Bergin's equation to calculate how much sunlight would be blocked by accumulated dust and pollution.

  Arid Regions Suffer More

The resulting calculations estimate the total loss of solar energy production in every part of the world. While the United States has relatively little migratory dust, more arid regions such as the Arabian Peninsula, Northern India and Eastern China are looking at heavy losses–17% to 25% or more, assuming monthly cleanings. If cleanings take place every two months, those numbers jump to 25% or 35%.

There are, of course, multiple variables that affect solar power production both on a local and regional level. For example, a large construction zone can cause a swift buildup of dust on a nearby solar array.

"The Arabian Peninsula loses much more solar power to dust than it does manmade pollutants," Bergin said. 

But the reverse is true for regions of China and regions of India are not far behind.

"China is already looking at tens of billions of dollars being lost each year, with more than 80% of that coming from losses due to pollution," Bergin said.

"With the explosion of renewables taking place in China and their recent commitment to expanding their solar power capacity, that number is only going to go up."

Bergin said it's yet another reason for policymakers worldwide to adopt emissions controls.