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The exponential growth of global capacity along with a reduction in manufacturing costs in the last two decades has caused photovoltaic (PV) energy technology to reach a high maturity level. As a consequence, currently, researchers from all over the world are making great efforts to analyse how different types of degradation impact this technology. This study provides a detailed review of the impact of different optical degradation mechanisms, which mainly affect the transmittance of the top-sheet encapsulant, on the spectral response of the PV modules. The impact on the spectral performance of PV modules is evaluated by considering the variations of the short-circuit current since this is the most widely used parameter to study the spectral impact in outdoors. Some of the most common types of optical degradation affecting the performance of PV modules worldwide, such as discoloration, delamination, aging and soiling have been addressed. Due to the widely documented impact of soiling on the spectral response of modules, this mechanism has been specially highlighted in this study. On the other hand, most of the publications analysed in this review report optical degradation in PV modules with polymeric encapsulant materials. Furthermore, an innovative procedure to quantify the spectral impact of degradation on PV devices is presented. This has been used to analyse the impact of two particular cases of degradation due to soiling and discoloration on the spectral response of different PV technologies.

Soiling, which consists of dust, dirt and particles accumulated on the surface of conventional or concentrator photovoltaic modules, absorbs, scatters, and reflects part of the incoming sunlight. Therefore, it reduces the amount of energy converted by the semiconductor solar cells. This work focuses on the effect of soiling on the spectral performance of multi-junction (MJ) cells, widely used in concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) applications. Novel indexes, useful to quantify the spectral impact of soiling are introduced, and their meanings are discussed. The results of a one-year experimental investigation conducted in Spain are presented and are used to discuss how soiling impacts each of the subcells of a MJ cell, as well as the cell current-matching. Results show that soiling affects the current balance among the junctions, i.e. the transmittance losses have found to be around 4% higher in the top than in the middle subcell. The spectral nature of soiling has demonstrated to increase the annual spectral losses of around 2%. Ideal conditions for the mitigation of soiling are also discussed and found to be in blue-rich environments, where the higher light intensity at the shorter wavelengths can limit the impact of soiling on the overall production of the CPV system., Comment: 22 pages, 12 Figures

Nowadays, photovoltaic (PV) technology has reached a high level of maturity in terms of module efficiency and cost competitiveness in comparison with other energy technologies. As PV has achieved high levels of deployment, the development of devices that can help to reduce PV operation and maintenance costs has become a priority. Soiling can be cause of significant losses in certain PV plants and its detection has become essential to ensure a correct mitigation. For this reason, accurate and low-cost monitoring devices are needed. While soiling stations have been traditionally employed to measure the impact of soiling, their high cost and maintenance have led to the development of innovative low-cost optical sensors, such as the device presented in this work and named "DUSST" (Detector Unit for Soiling Spectral Transmittance). The thermal characterization of the components of DUSST and the methodology used to predict soiling transmittance losses are presented in this study. The results show that the losses can be predicted with an error lower than 1.4%. The method has been verified with an experimental campaign with naturally soiled coupons exposed outdoors in Ja\'en, Spain.

Soiling impacts the photovoltaic (PV) module performance by reducing the amount of light reaching the photovoltaic cells and by changing their external spectral response. Currently, the soiling monitoring market is moving toward optical sensors that measure transmittance or reflectance, rather than directly measuring the impact of soiling on the performance of photovoltaic modules. These sensors, which use a single optical measurement, are not able to correct the soiling losses that depend on the solar irradiance spectra and on the spectral response of the monitored PV material. This work investigates methods that can improve the optical detection of soiling by extracting the full soiling spectrum profiles using only two or three monochromatic measurements. Spectral transmittance data, measured with a spectrophotometer and collected during a 46-week experimental soiling study carried out in Ja\'en, Spain, was analysed in this work. The use of a spectral profile for the hemispherical transmittance of soiled PV glass is found to significantly improve the soiling detection, returning the lowest errors independently of the PV materials and irradiance conditions. In addition, this work shows that it is also possible to select the measurement wavelengths to minimize the soiling loss detection error depending on the monitored PV semiconductor material (silicon, CdTe, a-Si, CIGS and a representative perovskite). The approaches discussed in this work are also found to be more robust to potential measurement errors compared to single wavelength measurement techniques., Comment: Accepted Manuscript (Postprint)

This paper presents the results of an investigation on the spectral losses of photovoltaic (PV) soiling. The transmittance of a glass coupon exposed to natural soiling outdoors in Ja\'en, southern Spain, has been measured weekly and used to estimate the soiling losses that various types of photovoltaic materials would experience if installed in the same location. The results suggest that measuring the hemispherical transmittance of the soiling accumulated on a PV glass coupon can give enough information to quantify the impact of soiling on energy production. Each PV technology is found to have a preferred spectral region, or a specific single wavelength, for which the transmittance through a PV glass coupon could be used for the best estimation of soiling losses. Overall, considering the average spectral transmittance between the extreme wavelengths of the material-specific absorption band, or the transmittance of soiling at a single wavelength between 500 and 600 nm yields the best estimations for different PV technologies. The results of this work can lead to innovative approaches to detect soiling in the field and to estimate the impact of spectral changes induced by soiling on PV energy production., Comment: Accepted Manuscript (Postprint)