Effect of dust on flat plate collectors

This paper deals with the effect of dust on the performance of flat plate collector. Six flat plate collectors forming three pairs were tested. The first pair was placed at 60°, the second pair was placed at 30° and the third pair was placed at zero degree to the horizontal. In each group one collector was wiped daily while the other was left unwiped. The amount of absorbed solar energy by each collector was computed and compared with the results of the others. The damaging effect of dust was also studied and a storm strength at which this damaging effect will take place was deduced. A 32, two inches diameter, solar cell array covered with a 3 mm fiber glass cover was tested with no dust and then was left for 72 hours under normal conditions without wiping the top surface and the current characteristics were plotted versus time of day. The quantity of settling dust per day on a square meter of flat surface was also measured and the number of days with high dust storms in various parts of Saudi Arabia was shown on a plot. It can be deduced that dust has a predominant effect on solar energy. It reduces its intensity by one third in Saudi Arabia.