How to clean solar panels without water
Vložit
- čas přidán 7. 09. 2024
- Cleaning solar panels currently is estimated to use about 10 billion gallons of water per year - enough to supply drinking water for up to 2 million people. A new cleaning method could remove dust on solar installations, improving overall efficiency, without using water. (Learn more: news.mit.edu/2...)
Watch more videos from MIT: www.youtube.com...
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is an independent, coeducational, privately endowed university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Our mission is to advance knowledge; to educate students in science, engineering, technology, humanities and social sciences; and to tackle the most pressing problems facing the world today. We are a community of hands-on problem-solvers in love with fundamental science and eager to make the world a better place.
The MIT CZcams channel features videos about all types of MIT research, including the robot cheetah, LIGO, gravitational waves, mathematics, and bombardier beetles, as well as videos on origami, time capsules, and other aspects of life and culture on the MIT campus. Our goal is to open the doors of MIT and bring the Institute to the world through video.
I see there's some residue left after the electrostatic scanning.
So then for those dust molecules that are neutral charge, would they remain on the solar panel surface with this method of cleaning, and will they continue to accumulate over time?
Yea i was thinking the same
They would, this is bullshit
Agree
Ya doesn't seem like that is going away
Perhaps, but it would seem that because charged and uncharged particles still possess very similar masses, morphologies and so on, there should be constant mixing between them. In addition, uncharged particles at the time of one scanning can become charged by the next scanning. Also, the charged particles removed by the system carry some uncharged particles with them due to friction.
I guess that the average (daily-maximal) humidity is a key component in defining the steady state percentage of uncharged particles, which in turn would be a key indicator of the system's efficiency. But let's wait for the large scale experiments, it's intriguing.
Sand is not dust my friend.
I was hoping to see this method tackle the real problem... which is dust left behind after rain fall or due build up.
Still rather interesting!!
"This technique mainly works because 80 percent of dust particles contain a mineral called silica, an insulating material that acquires electrical charge because it absorbs moisture from the surrounding environment. As long as there’s enough humidity in the air (above 20 to 30 percent), there’s enough moisture for the silica to absorb, Panat said. Fortunately, too little moisture in dry regions like in the desert doesn’t pose that much of a problem since humidity tends to fluctuate where it’s highest at night. For those regions, Panat said, the solar panel’s repulsion system can be timed to go off during periods of optimal humidity."
Air pressure
@@jacklol4248 ding ding ding, the only solution.
Glaubst de Wissenschoftla wissen weniger ois du, du obagscheita Pseudonerd?
@@jacklol4248 Even before using 1l of water i would have thought that AIR would be solution N1!! I didnt know that there was used water, this makes PV even worse as it has been before due to its costs, metal (pollution) and bad efficiency.
Seems great in theory, and it works alright for a handful of bone dry sand in a laboratory, but real outdoor air contains a lot of stuff. Volatile organics, biofilm forming bacteria, and petrochemical haze will all contribute to the formation of a layer of conglomerated dust that will be resistant to electrostatic cleaning, so eventually water will have to be used to clean that layer off, just less often.
Less often enough to make the saved water worth more than the cost of installation and operation? Who knows.
I guess we'll see in field testing.
Why not use air compressor
@@tanmaysingh267 I suspect the power requirements of compressing air enough to work would be more than the extra power from cleaning the panel, but I've been wrong about simpler things so I figure it's worth a try.
@@AtlasReburdened just use a leaf blower with tiny nossles i have solar system at home with exact same mechanism
Cost of water is not just in dollars, but in sustainability overall.
@@fyfaenihelvete Very true, which is why I avoided attributing a metric to the word worth.
Outstanding work. I can only imagine the extraterrestrial applications.
don't care about extraterrestrial applications. We have enough problems here on planet Earth that need solving.
@@zpd8003 There is often a complementary relationship between extraterrestrial and terrestrial applications of technology. Many space-relevant innovations assist in improving quality of life and energy efficiency on Earth.
Also, the budgets of NASA or other spacefaring organizations do not adversely impact community-based solar panel engineering. I don't see why we should consider them as mutually exclusive.
Extraterrestrial? Just hire illegal aliens duh...
@@zpd8003 : Long-lasting problems are often extremely difficult problems. After a point, it becomes more effective to improve things by investing in "unimportant" and "useless" things than to continue chasing the same frustrations endlessly.
My thought exactly - very pertinent tech given the likely imminent demise of InSight in the Martian winter.
It's not always the dust that covers solar panels. Often times it's a bird poo and one has to use water for that, otherwise just use compressed air to clean up the panels.
compressing air takes energy, so it lowers pv efficiency
@@vaakdemandante8772 So electrostatically charging the panels and moving the electrode across the surface takes what? magic?
@@tardonator Probably less energy, but it doesn't look to be all that effective.
@Dacia Sandero guys ... the point is where to get enough water in a dry region? Trucking it in is costly.
@@rupe53 Pipe line from wet regions. If you can make roads for trucks, how is a water pipe a big deal?
Looks like it cleans away sand, but not dust
Perhaps better to use water, then reclaim as much of the water as possible, filtering etc.
@@hippopotamus86 Every efficient water purification system consumes electricity. Moreover the water quality has to be extremely good better than drinking water which is only possible with RO systems.
@@itsourlife Filter it to reuse on the solar panels I mean. Gravity will be enough to filter it.
@@hippopotamus86 gravity will filter water to better than drinking water quality?
They said it reclaims 95% of the power output so it mustn’t matter much
Why not just use a fan? Also wouldn't the charging action damage the components withing the solar panel?
(Not being condescending, just curious)
I had the Same question
I want too. If someone with more information let's share it here.
Maybe when the sand is moved with air it scratch the panels...
@@vasiovasio moving sand would be very common if you install panels in a sandy environment, so thats out of question
It's because if we use fan the dust from one solar panel will accumulate over other , and the process will go on forever.
By the way we can use vaccum cleaner but not sure about the power consumption by them.
Because it doesn't work, no matter how hard you blow on them. The sand seems to bond to the panels - maybe the wind creates a potential that attracts the sand.
Interesting approach but i don't really get the problem... You don't have to use fresh drinking water to clean some solarpanels. Also you can pretty easily recover the water and filter it for reuse. So no water is actually "used up".
I think this is a solution to a problem which doesn't exist.
It basically is. And it'd be cheaper and more efficient to just install a well for a large solar farm.
@@rockspoon6528 Groundwater can be a very limited and important resource in arid areas, so if you have a bunch of solar farms all taking water from wells or boreholes or might have a significant impact elsewhere (eg river sources or watering holes drying up, plants with long roots to access water being unable to do so and dying etc). Agree it must be possible to reuse most water used in washing though.
@@mrgreatauk I might be a bit biased towards wells as most of my desert experience has been in Nevada, where the majority of the state has access to deep underground reservoirs whose draining not only doesn't have a negative impact on surface levels, but actually improves them a water which was simply... existing... deep underground re-entered the water cycle above.
@@rockspoon6528 fair enough, yeah each area is different depending on the geology and where the water is actually coming from etc. I'm from the UK and there are some areas where flow in little streams etc cam be really sensitive to groundwater levels, and other areas where there's a pretty small impact, the only real issue being if levels drop really low then salty water from elsewhere starts getting drawn in ruining the water source.
Fresh water is a must in fact I would have used better than drinking water to clean solar panels. Anything else would cause heavy deposits.
1:58 "Electrostatic repulsion.... has... immense potential"
Sreedath getting his electrical pun game on! :-D
why not use a controlled stream of air, blowing the dust off the surfaces the panels?
probably not energy efficient
@@mofuker199 an air blow will blow most of the sand of, while in the video, the setup still had some sand left.
+ A blow of air won't suck up too much energy
@@mofuker199 There is no way in hell that it would be less energy efficient than charge repulsion.
Questions: can this system remove wet dust particles too?
Haha probably not
Air pressure
Wet, how is it wet?
@@redi6460 Humidity, even in the desert
to be a real solution, would need to repel various types of soiling. also love that whoever edited this vid decided to use CSP heliostats for their b-roll instead of PV arrays 🤦♂
yes
and yet it might work for mirrors too
I was thinking the same thing!
Mirrors also require cleaning to perform at their peak
Congratulations sreedath sir
Praburaj sir always talks about you
(From learners' home)
But it would requiere an overhaul of existing panels? Wouldn't compressed air be easier to implement?
Compressed air would make the dust scratch up the panels.
@@theavaliengineer And this wouldn't even get it off in the first place. What's your point?
Would compressed air also do the job without scratching the surface?
You'd think so, then again it might act like sand blasting. Who knows!
@@jonwelch564 well thought, it could be even worse than traditional washing🙈
same question, maybe they can develop it so that the sand blasting effects are minimised? What about vacuuming?
its expensive and the sand particles sort of stick onto the pv cells
How about just having a constant stream of compressed air travel down the solar panel to make sure nothing ever settles on the cell in the first place? It cant stick to it if it never passes through the boundary layer.
Крупные частицы улетают, а самая главная проблема - это мелкая пыль. Пыль остаётся на панели :( Как с пылью бороться?
I must say that these particles must be stuck onto the surface, otherwise the built in motors that rotate the panels would be sufficient at achieveing the same effect. Change the angle of the panel and gravity should pull the particles to the floor.
So assuming the particles are stuck on. Then it would also be assumed that the cohesion force of said particles is probably stronger than the force exerted by this device being developed.
This is probably wasted funding.
@Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT ), Can we not use inbuilt motor vibrators the way we have for mobile devices so that the dust / sand particles are bounced off from the surface using a small portion of electricity which the panel generates from time to time ?
Congratulations sreedath sir
Prabhuraj sir always say's about you.
From learners' home
if we can produce anti-dust glass material or applicable dust repellent that would resolve the main problem
Right.
If it was possible, They would have already done that lol.
We can also use vacuum cleaning technique
Ya don't need to go to MIT to know when a leaf-blower will do.
Here's an interesting solution (expensive, but i think it's worth to try).
Sand is 6 on Mohs scale. Ceramic is 8. There are phones that have ceramic glass. Why not try to make ceramic coating as cheap as humanly possible, and then just brush the sand off without worrying about scratches?
Moreover, the advances in such ceramic coating will be applicable not only for solar panels, but in many other places (such as phones, glasses, windshields, etc.)
What about a simple vibration based system? Most of these panels are at a steep enough angle that the particles should fall off with a slight bump, right?
Isn't using electricity to move the sand/dust going to require a huge amount of energy if you're cleaning something like a solar farm?
Sure you didn't use any water but instead you're using a huge amount of power to do the same job.
Plus in your demo it doesn't even fully clean the small piece of glass.
It literally makes electricity, it's a solar panel
Basically, what he's asking is: would the amount of energy used with this method offset that of purifying the water necessary to clean? A valid question.
Power is volts times amps. High voltage does not necessarily equate to high power. You need enough voltage to charge the particles and then the amps is going to be related to the amount of energy required to move the particles to the collector, plus losses. None of these details are in the linked article.
Interestingly, the article mentions that humidity is crucial to the process working.
@@Markle2k The humidity part is very interesting and could limit the application of this in arid environments, where the humidity doesn't exceed 30% during summer seasons.
@@lifeisshort921 If you read the article, it's linked in the video description and not very long, they say that when the temperatures go down in many arid sites, the RH climbs high enough. They suggest cleaning in the morning as a workaround. Deserts do tend to get cold at night. Desert plants often survive by harvesting dew.
I don't understand why air or sound would not work to remove the sand
Or vibrating the panels themselves to shake the dust loose
Yep, the real problem is other trace containments. If it was just sand like in the lab no need for that fancy system.
Could you hook a speaker up to the back of the solar panel and use the distributed vibrations to clear the panels? This would eliminate an additional mechanism that would eventually be affected by the sand and dust.
"have you got any Dusty Springfield? You don't take requests? Dust My Broom?"
"A better idea that uses existing tech? Fuck off, we're trying to graduate here" -MIT students, probably.
I wish to one day be a part of this engineering group to create significant change in the world. Great job guys!
Great idea using electrostatics to remove the dust.
Could you use the same electrostatic repulsion to prevent the dust accumulation in the first place?
Not a quite energy efficient idea to have electrostatic repulsion all day long
@@ace6396 I understand the ineffency of running all the time. Maybe a periodic repulsion pulse would work.
My main thought is to eliminate the extra mechanical parts.
@@RK-1956 Don't you think it can cause micro scratches on using repulsion rather than attraction.
@@ace6396 I have no idea. It'll take someone a lot smarter than me to answer that question.
This reminds me of the degaussing setting we used to have on CRT monitors. Could we use something like this for cleaning windows of office buildings?
As long as you source the water from rain filled lakes that have rivers leading back to the ocean, the water you use on the solar panels is not "consumed". It evaporates and rains back in oceans and lakes again. The only waste is the energy it takes to pump and transfer the water to the desert areas.
Yes...but this is mainly for desert solar farms, where rain-filled lakes are not super common
This won’t take off the layer of grime that builds up over time. It won’t remove molds that develop along the lower edge of modules. It is a nice idea that a student has, that will only be a waste of money and time in the field.
Seem like a small shop vac and a dust brush the width of the panel would do . Kinda like a windsheild wiper but for solar panels.
Congratulations sreedath sir
Praburaj sir always talks about you ( from learners' home )
Morning dew, dust that settles on panels, and critters that crawl across them make a rich brew that algae and mildew like to grow on. This makes large solar farms impractical in some areas, but great for homeowners, providing the panels are ground mounted.
So I'm curious why brushing causes scratch damage over time? Can you not make a brush where the bristles are significantly softer than the surface they're cleaning so they don't cause scratch damage? Or does the scratch damage come from the sand particles being dragged across the surface of the panel?
Would be useful on Mars rovers. The whole water thing though, the problem is having to transport the water. He said that the water used can supply 1 million people for a year in developing countries. The same issues exist, transporting water to them. Water used to wash solar panels doesn't disappear. It evaporates and rains back down somewhere else.
The problem isn't sand. The problem is the solar panel is exposed to *ANY* environment. Focus.
Kudos for the entusiasm on doing something that will never see the light of the sun!
Congratulations to Sreedath Panat and MIT for inventing the Electrostatic Repulsion of dust particles from solar panels which adds the efficiency and life of the system.
Do you believe everything you see on the internet, or can you apply critical thinking?
Why not just use pressurized air to blow the sand off? If that is a solution then this seems over-engineered. Regardless, this is a great invention.
Have we moved over pneumatic system already? Creating static on solar panels seems a bit like looking for dangers for the fun of it.
This just makes me happy
Here is an idea. Just collect the water used to clean the panels.
It's called "recycling", not sure whether you have heard of the term before but try it.
Why not reuse the water being used to clean the panels? Like as it washes down you collect it down stream?
Just an Idea: Instead of electrostatic repulsion, why not use Acoustic Vibrations to displace the dust particles from the surface of the solar panels? Think of it like putting salt/sand on a subwoofer.
Can we use wind blow or something else to clean it without using power ??
Feel The Power of INDIANS🇮🇳
Also see the lack of power in India that all these Indians have gone to different countries to apply their brains at research.
No intelligent person will stay in a country where there is always a corrupt good for nothing higher-up who didn't deserve his spot calling all the shots. Not to mention some kind of politics, favoritism, corruption at every level.
As a scale model builder, working with tiny grass filament and applying them by with an electrostatic applicator (basically the same tecnology shown here), I actually tough of removing dust from surfaces, even tried it, but never linked it with the benefits of large scale, no water, automated system for solar panels. Nice.
I think you a word.
MIT always come up with a complex solution for simple problems and forget to solve the problems which needs to be addressed
Compressed air has been used by many to remove dust from objects; most notably PC cases.
Cost is a big concern.
@@sanjeevkmaurya-d2653 Cost is not a fucking concern with compressed air, especially when your suggested alternative is to install mechanical actuators with charged plates onto each solar panel.
And why would be a good ide to basically sandblast the solar panels? Cause that's what you would end up doing, if you start blowing sand from a surface, it scartches the surface.
@@asdfhun The wind: Allow me to introduce myself...
Incredible idea! I wish you all the best in scaling it up :)
The problem you are trying to solve got me thinking;
Could a closer to loop system that still used water be employed to retain the solvent benefits of water while reducing the consumption problem?
Prevent as much water loss due to evaporation using a sealed armature that sweeps over the panel.
After each panel (or X set of panels realistically) allow the reservoir tank to rest and settle out the collected particulates to reduce filtration requirements?
This would take a lot of work to develop but now I want to try it.
Yeah. not that different from a carpet cleaner...
Might work but water has to be introduced into the system initially, for large scale solar farms this might be a big number
Is there any Electric spark and ignition issues due to static voltage
Best way is using scheduled water spray then the water drop is going into water tank so it can be filtered and reuse.
Ultrasonic vibration can clean it easily. Many camera sensors use this to self clean.
How about a modified pressure washer that blasts air instead water, would that work?
Is it efficient enough for a commercial use afterall that's the most important part for adaptability?
Awesome, but small dust coating is still on the elrment and it looks visibly worse than before sand application.
You can immediately start large scale experiment. PV is cheap. It seems that the machine is very complex however. And i assume the coating isnt temporary or harmful to production?
Nice application, but here are few challenges to it,
1. Aluminum doped Zinc Oxide will reducen its strength to hold charge at high desert temperatures.
2. Dust and debris will significantly create a deeper layer of dust with time, whereas we will just remove bigger sand particles.
3. Energy is needed in this system to operate, which is negotiable.
4. There could be charge leakage which may effect the semiconductor in sensitive solar cells.
5. The cost of its application will be lot expensive.
6. It will need a lot of maintenance, like we need to change the chemical based electrodes time to time due to decay.
Overall, idea is great, but practically speaking, it has a lot of challenges to overcome. Right now the best thing, i can say off is just using medium pressure air cleaning, which does not require any transportation or water resource.
Coal plants have been using this technology for years, this isn’t some new invention. Electrostatic precipitators I believe? They use it to capture particle emissions before they blow out of the smoke stacks. The efficacy of the system depends on the specific types of coal, because some coals produce more electrically neutral ash particles than others, and therefore can not be captured by the precipitators alone.
TL;DR Coal did it first, not all the dust can be removed. MIT didn’t invent this technology.
Why isn‘t high pressured air an option?
On another note, fitting millions of panels with a control system and actuator arms hovering around the setup would not only add significantly to the footprint of the panel weight, but additional need for balancing and arrangements needed to compensate for the same.
Instead I would rather have the researchers collaborate with robotic manufacturers (think Boston Dynamics etc) so that a group of robots could move around the field going on periodic trips and use the same tech but which would be built upon itself instead. This would cut costs significantly in my opinion and thereby add to the interest of solar companies to adopt the tech.
The arms won't be fixed, they'll be mounted on a moveable system. The panels will just need a layer of indium tin oxide.
Maybe a vacuum cleaner attachment with that technology will be a good ideia to start
It would probably be easier to design a water catchment system with a filter to recycle the water.
Yep, why not just reuse the water
Another Indian student makes a contribution. I wish he makes a company out of that invention in India!
An estimated 391,000 Indians left India in 2017
And the numbers are still rising every year
That's more than some country's whole population
Just cover it in an adhesive plastic film that can be replaced like a phone screen protector. And before eco people go all crazy about the plastic, keep in mind you're trying to extend the life span of a giant piece of plastic.
Basically. PV cells are shit at mass energy production- they have their uses (remote, off-grid power supply such as isolated locations or in space), but they're not a feasible tech for large scale production.
Can not we use acoustic pulses to cleqr the particles?
0:45 “30 billion gallons” does not need a “$” dollar sign in front of the “30” in the closed captions
^ For the video channel manager’s reference
What about a leaf blower strapped to big robot arm? And put a fence around the facility to keep some of the dust out.
Put a reusable transparent layer on top of the solar cell. Now clean this layer however you wish as this is not a part of the solar cell
Great work.
Is cleaning solar panels really necessary if panels are kept at 20+ angle? Most of the large dust particles will fall off and the remaining amount should not impact the efficiency that much.
I have solar panels and the small amount of debris that remains can have a significant effect on ur production. Its why we tend to use water to clean them
That's the problem here, the demonstation is made with dust which has virtually no adherence to the solar panel, the actual panels who need to get cleaned have the sand/dust stuck on them from previous rains or other events, and that's why even at a 20° angle they don't fall, but that is also why this solution seems kind of useless? time will tell i guess
@@citizen_of_the_stars5144 Definitely I was looking for this comment.
@@citizen_of_the_stars5144 good point, we'll see how they actually fare out there
I'll also add that periodical scrubbing with water (if necessary) if this system were to leave residue is still ideal compared to what we have now
@@acidset True, but perhaps it can reduce the frequency of water scrubbing and still save a bit of fresh water
I believe same can be achieved with high compressed air - I would argue it wouldn't even leave a residue like is visible on video
Great work. Congratulation to the MIT team for their dedication, and effort. This product will not only clean solar panels but it will also increase the life span of panels.
Thing is, that it only removed whole grains of sand and not dust which was still left on glass. This "MIT team" could come up with either glass to which dust wouldnt stick as much or a high-pressure air compressor for better results
Why not compressed air? You're producing excessive electricity anyways - use them as energy storage and cleaning medium at once
Master the concepts of practical engineering here 👌
Less efficient and effective than an off-the-shelf leaf blower and requiring a few additional mechanical actuators on each solar panel array.
This idea ain't practical.
Is really better that more simple air blower or panel tilting system?
So putting them vertically and blow (or suck) air from time to time to clean them?
Sound expensive. I have another idea - compressing air and using it to blow the dust away. No deep scratches, no water waste.
I had a question , why not use a vibrator which vibrates intensly and making the surface slippery as possible !
The next Mars lander needs a version of this system!
Yeah, now try removing bird poop with that xD
This plus air jets would work well, then the occasional water cleaning. but the true best solution would be to use a very precisely made blade as a wiper, and a very hard outer coating on the panel. It would be like when I manipulate a particular white powder on a glass sheet with a razor blade, leaves no scratches and all particle sizes are wiped by it.
Looks like the really fine pieces of dust stay though
Rotating it upside down so gravity help remove big sand particles and then blowing air or using suction so small particles will be removed without scratching glass surface.
How do you remove the mineral deposits of dried water after rain? This great for sand and larger particles than dust but seems like it won’t get everything for such a possibly expensive process
When the electrode moves across you need a tilting motion at both ends of the pass to loose the stuff that you collected
Great stuff! When can I not sweep and mop my house?
How about medium pressure dry air? Not sure about the consequences but that would surely remove some serious dust/sand off the panels
Its not that there is not enough water or food for the people who cant get any, its that they live in such remote locations, that getting the food and water to them is hard.
How about vibrating panel every now and then to remove dust using gravity.
can't we use compressed air?
Hey but the dust that was remaining on the panel is the actual type of dust which is to be cleaned
Thank you for using your brain- it's surprisingly rare...
Another piece of interesting technology that I would never see in my life again
You'll never see two charged pieces of metal again in your life?
Are you dead yet?
What about those areas where the moisture in air is hight. Like coastal areas.
Gotta say the "after dust removal" panel looked WAY dirtier than my panels ever get, and if that can end up outputting that much power I think I'm good with the current way of things.
Wonder if this will work with mud which falls with rain.
It won't.
As a next step it would be great to show what it can do about real dirt on a panel. I mean the real one that sticks and you need to scrub it.
If you are using power draw from the panels, why not add a compressed air device that can spray a burst of air every x hours?
May need a powerful air brush to get rid of rest of the dust. I am sure they have looked into that too.
Why not just build a nuclear power plant and get 100x the amount of power with smaller land usage and much cleaner energy?
what a stupid idea
I am thinking compressed air be a good options Electrical Valve close and open Control Centre. They output enough so they can clean sand and dust of the panel. It’s an idea but I know nothing clean better than water and brush.
Or just you know.. use a fan to blow the dust off. And using water cleaning only when required... Also I always wondered why solar panels don't have additional dark film on it to trap more light, since most of it is reflected making it very inefficient