Solar panel cleaning

Airtouch Solar manufactures and sells its autonomous, water-free PV panel cleaning products and services in Israel and India. The company has won significant orders for its recently launched Airtouch AT 4.0 solution with leading Indian developers including Adani Green Energy and ReNew.

China’s Sol-Bright Technology has introduced a sixth-generation automated robotic cleaning system for solar panels in utility-scale PV installations. The robot features gear transmission and has a cleaning efficiency of minimum 99.5%.

Enel says it will work with Italian startup Reiwa to develop a robot for waterless cleaning of PV plants. The innovative device features brushes and can autonomously navigate across panel rows, eliminating the need for human intervention.

Airtouch Solar will supply and install its dry-cleaning robots for PV panels in ReNew projects. It will also provide operation and maintenance support for 25 years.

Qatari researchers have looked at the degree to which cleaning robots reduce PV plants’ yield with the shade they produce on the panels. They found that module orientation has an enormous effect on the impact of shadow.

Israel’s Airtouch Solar will supply and install its water-free panel cleaning robots for Amplus Solar’s PV project in Rajasthan. It will also provide comprehensive maintenance services for the robots for 25 years.

India’s Prasham Greens has designed water-draining clamps to drain the water accumulated on the edges of the solar panels after rains and water-based cleaning.

India’s TriNANO Technologies has developed a nanocoating for solar modules that reportedly increases the panel’s power generation by up to 4% owing to its light trapping, anti-reflection and self-cleaning properties. It also lowers the panel temperature by 2-3 degrees Celsius compared to non-coated panels. 

Sleepwalkers has introduced an automated robotic device for solar panel cleaning that doesn’t require an additional rail system as it can move on the aluminum frame of the panels.

A study conducted in the semi-arid weather conditions of Ben Guerir, Morocco, evaluated the performance of antistatic and hydrophobic coatings for photovoltaic solar panels. After nine months of operation, the PV panels with coatings developed by Portuguese company ChemiTek produced an average of 3% more energy than the uncoated ones.