Photovoltaic electricity generation loss due to snow – A literature review on influence factors, estimation, and mitigation

Pawluk, Robert; Chen, Yuxiang; She, Yuntong

doi:10.1016/j.rser.2018.12.031

Cited by 70 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Regarding power losses, Pawluk et al [22] made a literature review on different climates and the influence factors, such as climate, adhesion and angle. They also review the most remarkable prediction and modelling techniques for short and long term; and mitigation methods, such as coatings and heating.…”

Section: Snow and Ice Depositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Causes and effects [52] Norway Snow characterization, light obstruction. [53] USA Instrumentation, image processing, temperature [22] Canada Literature review, influence factors, mitigation. [54] USA Power losses, effect of angle.…”

Section: Snow and Ice Depositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similar publications on this field are [17], on the challenges faced for the operation and maintenance of PV systems, considering their inspection and different failure modes; or [18,19] on the development of PV energy in India and England, respectively. Other reviews focus on one type of defects, such as Costa et al [20] on soiling research and development; Reese et al [21], on protocols to measure corrosion and degradation caused by outdoor exposure; Pawluk et al [22], on the influence factors of snow power losses; Hamdi et al [23], on the effects of humidity; or Kumar and Kumar [24], who made general review of PV technology and its failure modes. This paper analyses the most important defects affecting PV energy and their influence on the affected components.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Survey of maintenance management for photovoltaic power systems

Gonzalo

Marugán

Márquez

2020

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

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The sustainability of the global energy production systems involves new renewable energies and the improvement of the existing ones. Photovoltaic industry is growing thanks to the development of new technologies that increase the performance of photovoltaic systems. These systems are commonly subject to harsh environmental conditions that decrease their energy production and efficiency. In addition, current photovoltaic technologies are more sophisticated, and the size of photovoltaics solar plants is growing. Under this framework, research on failures and degradation mechanisms, together with the improvement of maintenance management, becomes essential to increase the performance, efficiency, reliability, availability, safety, and profitability of these systems. To assess maintenance needs, this paper presents a double contribution: an exhaustive literature review and updated survey on maintenance of photovoltaic plants, and a novel analysis of the current state and a discussion of the future trends and challenges in this field. An analysis of the main faults and degradation mechanisms is done, including the causes, effects, and the main techniques to detect, prevent and mitigate them.

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Section: Snow and Ice Depositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Snow and Ice Depositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Survey of maintenance management for photovoltaic power systems

Gonzalo

Marugán

Márquez

2020

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

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“…In a number of studies from snow-rich locations with cold winters, PV systems are found to suffer annual energy output losses up to 34% for certain years and systems, with monthly losses up to 100% [3][4][5][6][7]. Moreover, in moderate climates, significant loss levels around 5-6% typically, and up to 9.3%, have been reported, whereas plants in mild climates show typical annual losses below 2-3% [3,[8][9][10]. These studies and their reported levels indicate that snow losses can have a substantial impact on the energy yield, in addition to impacting the financial conditions for the site investor and owner.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Townsend and Powers [6] suggested a linear relationship with the squared cosine of the tilt angle for annual losses, while Marion et al [10] proposed a linear relationship to the sine of the tilt angle for the speed of snow sliding. Moreover, the smoothness of the array surface affected by module framing or mounting system parts [3,11] and interference with ground or roof constructions below the array [3,5,6,10] were reported to have a significant impact on snow clearance rates. Townsend and Powers [6] defined a basic approach to model ground interference, but for rooftop systems, many more parameters are likely to impact the interference, such as roof tilt angle, the possible presence of snow racks, module mounting height, type of roof cladding, and distance between the bottom of the array and the roof eaves.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Snow-Induced PV Loss Modeling Using Production-Data Inferred PV System Models

2021

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Snow-induced photovoltaic (PV)-energy losses (snow losses) in snowy and cold locations vary up to 100% monthly and 34% annually, according to literature. Levels that illustrate the need for snow loss estimation using validated models. However, to our knowledge, all these models build on limited numbers of sites and winter seasons, and with limited climate diversity. To overcome this limitation in underlying statistics, we investigate the estimation of snow losses using a PV system’s yield data together with freely available gridded weather datasets. To develop and illustrate this approach, 263 sites in northern Sweden are studied over multiple winters. Firstly, snow-free production is approximated by identifying snow-free days and using corresponding data to infer tilt and azimuth angles and a snow-free performance model incorporating shading effects, etc. This performance model approximates snow-free monthly yields with an average hourly standard deviation of 6.9%, indicating decent agreement. Secondly, snow losses are calculated as the difference between measured and modeled yield, showing annual snow losses up to 20% and means of 1.5–6.2% for winters with data for at least 89 sites. Thirdly, two existing snow loss estimation models are compared to our calculated snow losses, with the best match showing a correlation of 0.73 and less than 1% bias for annual snow losses. Based on these results, we argue that our approach enables studying snow losses for high numbers of PV systems and winter seasons using existing datasets.

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Enabling Renewable Energy Technologies in Harsh Climates with Ultra‐Efficient Electro‐Thermal Desnowing, Defrosting, and Deicing

Khodakarami

Yan

et al. 2022

Adv Funct Materials

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The rapid anthropomorphic emission of greenhouse gases is contributing to global climate change, resulting in the increased frequency of extreme weather events, including unexpected snow, frost, and ice accretion in warmer regions that typically do not encounter these conditions. Adverse weather events create challenges for energy systems such as wind turbines and photovoltaics. To maintain energy efficiently and operational fidelity, snow, frost, and ice need to be removed efficiently and rapidly. State‐of‐the‐art removal methods are energy‐intensive (energy density > 30 J cm−2) and slow (>1 min). Here, pulsed Joule heating is developed on transparent self‐cleaning interfaces, demonstrating interfacial desnowing, defrosting, and deicing with energy efficiency (energy density < 10 J cm−2) and rapidity (≈1 s) beyond what is currently available. The transparency and self‐cleaning are tailored to remove both snow and dust while ensuring minimal interference with optical light absorption. It is experimentally demonstrated a multi‐functional coating material on a commercial photovoltaic cell, demonstrating efficient energy generation recovery and rapid ice/snow removal with minimal energy consumption. Through the elimination of accretion, this technology can potentially widen the applicability of photovoltaics and wind technologies to globally promising locations, potentially further reducing greenhouse gas emissions and global climate change.

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Photovoltaic electricity generation loss due to snow – A literature review on influence factors, estimation, and mitigation

Cited by 70 publications

References 38 publications

Survey of maintenance management for photovoltaic power systems

Survey of maintenance management for photovoltaic power systems

Snow-Induced PV Loss Modeling Using Production-Data Inferred PV System Models

Enabling Renewable Energy Technologies in Harsh Climates with Ultra‐Efficient Electro‐Thermal Desnowing, Defrosting, and Deicing

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