Soiling, the accumulation of dust, is a detrimental influencing factor for solar energy generation in desert climates, as it blocks the sun light and therefore reduces the energy yield of photovoltaic (PV) modules. Accordingly, soiling requires mitigation by frequent cleaning. However, regular cleaning of PV modules can damage glass surfaces and commonly used anti-reflective coatings (ARCs), which typically enable 2–3% or even higher increases in the power output. Within this study, the damage potential of dry manual cleaning on uncoated solar glass and two different commercial ARCs is examined. For this, a cleaning test apparatus and methodology applicable to full size PV modules were developed. The changes in the optical behavior of coated and uncoated glass samples were investigated both theoretically and experimentally, including the analysis of spectroscopic reflectance and microstructural damage patterns. It is found that dry brushing on dusty surfaces causes only minor damage to uncoated glass surfaces with no changes in hemispherical reflectance, even at high numbers of brush cycles. In contrast, both the tested coatings indicate significant reductions of the AR performance, already after 100 brush cycles with increasing reflectance up to 2.3% at 600 nm. Furthermore, the coatings indicated different stabilities during extended abrasion testing, but still retained the AR properties after 500 cycles of testing, reflecting harsh and bi-weekly cleaning over 20 years of operation. Localized coating removal and—to a less extent—coating thinning were identified as ARC degradation mechanisms, which were supported by spectroscopy experimental and simulation results for microstructural analysis of the samples.

中文翻译：

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工业光伏组件玻璃涂层对清洁过程的弹性

污染，即灰尘的积累，是沙漠气候下太阳能发电的不利影响因素，因为它会阻挡太阳光，从而降低光伏 (PV) 模块的能量产量。因此，需要通过频繁清洁来减轻污染。然而，定期清洁光伏组件会损坏玻璃表面和常用的抗反射涂层 (ARC)，这通常会使功率输出增加 2-3% 甚至更高。在这项研究中，检查了干式手动清洁对无涂层太阳能玻璃和两种不同的商用 ARC 的损坏潜力。为此，开发了适用于全尺寸 PV 模块的清洁测试设备和方法。从理论和实验上研究了镀膜和未镀膜玻璃样品光学行为的变化，包括光谱反射率和微观结构损伤模式的分析。研究发现，在多尘表面上干刷只会对未镀膜的玻璃表面造成轻微损坏，而半球反射率没有变化，即使刷洗次数较多。相比之下，两种测试涂层都表明 AR 性能显着降低，在 100 次刷循环后，600 nm 处的反射率增加至 2.3%。此外，涂层在延长磨损测试中表现出不同的稳定性，但在 500 次测试循环后仍保留了 AR 特性，这反映了 20 年的粗暴和双周清洁。局部涂层去除和（在较小程度上）涂层变薄被确定为 ARC 降解机制，