Self Cleaning Solar Panels Mars

System developed for nasa missions could help burgeoning solar industry.

Self cleaning solar panels mars.

Having just survived its sixth mars winter after the most recent cleaning event opportunity has solar panels that are as dust free as they were before it entered its first mars winter. The same technology used to keep nasa s mars rover robots clean could be used for self cleaning solar panels according to bbc news. Besides that the coated panels show a huge reduction in reflection by 65 relative to uncoated module. Self cleaning technology developed for lunar and mars missions could be used to keep terrestrial solar panels dust free dust deposits can reduce the efficiency of electricity generating solar.

Mars of course is a dusty and dry environment mazumder. Working with nasa mazumder and colleagues initially developed the self cleaning solar panel technology for use in lunar and mars missions. The coating itself is very robust says curran. The rover uses about 180 watt hours per day for basic survival and communications so this increase roughly doubles the amount of discretionary power for activities such as driving and using instruments.

The cleaning boosts spirit s daily energy supply by about 30 watt hours to about 240 watt hours from 210 watt hours. We ll get to the best way to clean your solar panels in a minute. Taking a cue from technology initially created for missions to mars researchers have invented a self cleaning system for solar panels that requires no water or mechanical movement and uses only a tiny fraction of the electricity generated by the panel. In recent years titanprotect photokat 2014 have developed coated solar panel with excellent self cleaning property where the coated panel rinses the dust and dirt off during rainfalls.

Google did a study on the need to clean solar panels. This is a big advantage over spray on coatings which gradually degrade with time self cleaning hydrophobic coatings schn107. They found that tilted panels don t require cleaning as much as flat panels. Instead of relying on humans to scrub down panels the.

But first let s look at when and why you might need to invest in solar panel cleaning equipment or hire a professional cleaning service.