Performance enhancement of a photovoltaic module using solar functional coatings

The performance of a solar photovoltaic module can be improved with aid to predictive, corrective and preventive maintenance procedures. Most of the solar modules installed in the roof top are under non-maintenance state. For the locations like dusty environments and deserts, the dust accumulation will be more. Hence, it is the major requirement to clean the PV modules which are much costlier to do in regular basis. In this paper, an anti-reflective coating (hydrophilic) is used to deteriorate the losses due to reflectance in a solar PV module and thereby enhancing its efficiency. In addition to it, easy-to-clean coating (super hydrophilic) is used to improve the dust cleaning effectiveness in a solar PV module. The material employed for anti-reflective coating is MgF2 and for easy-to-clean coating is SiO2. Two polycrystalline solar PV modules of 10 Wp capacity with model ADT12AN are connected to similar kind of optimized load of 40 Ω in a field condition. American Standard Testing Methodology (ASTM: E948) is used for standard test measurements. Based on the characteristics of different coating techniques, the optimized coating performance is considered. One module coated with anti-reflective and easy-to-clean coatings is considered for the analysis. The comparative analysis between the modules is undertaken with LABView software. An extensive analysis for module performance validation with experimental setup is carried out to show the effectiveness of the proposed system. From the results, it can be clearly observed that a 2% rise in the overall power performance using anti-reflective coating is achieved. This can lead to an increase in yearly energy output of the solar plant.