Evaluation of particle pollution influence on loss of solar power generation between commercial and background areas in Lucknow, India

• Published in: Environment, development and sustainability Vol. 26; no. 7; pp. 17749 - 17758
• Main Authors: Prasad, Hari Om, Mahanta, S. S. Kalikinkar, Bojjagani, Sreekanth
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01-07-2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Air pollution; Background; Deposition; Dust; Earth and Environmental Science; Ecology; Economic Geology; Economic Growth; Effectiveness; Environment; Environmental Economics; Environmental Management; Installation; Irradiance; Particulate emissions; Particulate matter; Photovoltaic cells; Photovoltaics; Pollution; Power; Power plants; Site selection; Solar energy; Solar panels; Solar power; Solar power generation; Solar radiation; Sustainable Development; Urban areas; India; Air pollution; PV system; Solar power station; Urban region; Particulate matter
• ISSN: 1573-2975; 1387-585X; 1573-2975
• DOI: 10.1007/s10668-023-03359-x

Reliable site selection for the installation of solar power stations in urban areas is critical for the reason that one of the criteria parameters, aerosol pollution, which is a significant threat to the performance of photovoltaic (PV) systems, is happened to be varied place to place within and surrounding areas of the urban region. Therefore, the present work is an attempt to ascertain the potential reduction of solar power generation between a commercial and a background site in the urban region of Lucknow, India. Power generation of 125-kW/h capacities of solar PV modules is installed in two campuses (i.e., commercial region and background region) of a national research institute CSIR-IITR, Lucknow. Simultaneous on-site hourly particle pollution measurements for PM
1
, PM
2.5
, and PM
10
were captured using optical principle-based PALAS Frog Dust Analyzer for both locations from morning 7 AM to evening 5 PM during February 15–21, 2021 (i.e., Monday–Sunday). Mean concentrations of PM
1
, PM
2.5
, and PM
10
were recorded for the commercial area as 47 µg/m
3
, 76 µg/m
3
, and 164 µg/m
3
, and in the background area as 20 µg/m
3
, 39 µg/m
3
, and 69 µg/m
3
, respectively. Despite the unchanged solar irradiance over the city, the power outputs of the solar power station located at the background area are found consistently higher than the power station at the commercial area as recorded atmospheric PM
#
levels at the commercial site are higher. Further, identified the deposition of dust particles on PV panels is gradually increased from clean-day to dusty-day, and this is relatively enhanced with higher level at commercial area than city background due to the load of coarse size particles in the ambient air and their instantaneous deposition on solar panels. Therefore, the loss of solar power output was found maximum of 17.2% and 6.17% in the commercial area and the background area, respectively. The study results revealed the importance of the selection of pollution-free sites for the effectiveness of energy generation by the solar power station in urban regions.