Thermodynamic and economic comparison of photovoltaic electricity generation with and without self‐cleaning photovoltaic panels

In this study, thermodynamic and economic analysis of a photovoltaic electricity generation system (PVEGS) with and without self‐cleaning panels is reported. In the first part, thermodynamic analyses are used to characterize the performance of the system. In the second part, the economic comparison of photovoltaic electricity generation with and without self‐cleaning panels is carried out for all climate zones of Iran. A computer simulation program using EES software is developed to model the solar photovoltaic electricity generation system in four different climates of Iran. The solar photovoltaic system provides electricity during the year. Our goal is to point out the potential of electricity production using conventional panels compared to self‐cleaning panels under the same condition. The analysis involves the specification of the effects of varying solar radiation intensity (SRI) on the electricity generation rate of the photovoltaic electricity generation system. The average output power values for the solar photovoltaic system with self‐cleaning panels and the solar photovoltaic system without self‐cleaning panels are found to be 50767 and 48120 kWh/year, respectively, which means that the solar photovoltaic system with self‐cleaning panels has the higher performance than the solar photovoltaic system without self‐cleaning panels in all climate zones of Iran.