Comment by Retric
12 hours ago
You don’t need to do anything to keep panels with a significant angle clear of dust in deserts. The Sahara is near the equator but you can stow panels at night and let the wind do its thing.
The lack of launch costs more than offset the need for extra panels and batteries.
What’s your source for that claim? Soiling is a massive problem for desert solar, causing as high as 50% efficiency loss in the Middle East.[1]
[1] https://www.nlr.gov/news/detail/features/2021/scientists-stu...
A relevant quote from that article.
“The reason I concentrate my research on these urban environments is because the composition of soiling is completely different,” said Toth, a Ph.D. candidate in environmental engineering at the University of Colorado who has worked at NREL since 2017. “We have more fine particles that are these stickier particles that could contribute to much different surface chemistry on the module and different soiling. In the desert, you don’t have as much of the surface chemistry come into play.”
You’re not summarizing the article fairly. She is saying the soiling mechanisms are environmentally dependent, not that there is no soiling in the desert. Again, it cites an efficiency hit of 50% in the ME. The article later notes that they’ve experimented with autonomous robots for daily panel cleaning, but it’s not a generally solved problem and it’s not true that “the wind takes care of it.”
And you still haven’t provided a source for your claim.
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