SBIR Phase II: Increasing energy yield from dusty solar panels with a new generation of an electrostatic self-cleaning technology

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）二期项目的广泛影响和商业潜力将产生许多积极的社会成果，通过发展太阳能创新和促进能源独立来提高美国的经济竞争力。在世界范围内，大型公用事业规模的太阳能发电厂在沙漠般的地区的巨大增长，给当地的水资源带来了极大的压力，因为它们需要清洁太阳能电池板上的灰尘。一个典型的100兆瓦太阳能发电厂可以为4.2万户家庭供电。在25年的生命周期中，这座发电厂需要3800万加仑的饮用水，由4750辆油罐车运输，并产生2200万美元的清洁费用（甚至没有考虑到25年的通货膨胀）。每年多次清洁25万多块布满灰尘的太阳能电池板，仍将导致5100万美元的能源销售损失，原因是这些灰尘造成的污染。减少这些损失和避免所有这些成本对降低我们的家庭电力成本、电动汽车和日益增长的社会电气化有很大的影响。SBIR二期项目提出降低太阳能发电成本，提高太阳能发电厂的可靠性和可预测性，重要的是，在这些沙漠地区，在清洁尘土飞扬的太阳能电池板时不再使用水。为了解决与这项新技术相关的技术和科学挑战，研究工作将包括实验和建模的结合，以增加原型的尺寸，并验证其在实验室和现场条件下的性能。这些努力的结果将提高这种新方法的效率、降低成本和可扩展性。我们的工业合作伙伴将指导商业化工作，以促进太阳能行业广泛采用这项技术。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact and commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will generate numerous positive societal outcomes by increasing the economic competitiveness of the United States through the development of innovation in solar energy and promoting energy independence. Worldwide, the tremendous growth of large utility-scale solar power plants in desert-like regions has put extreme pressure on local water resources for cleaning dust from solar panels. A typical solar power plant of 100 megawatts can power 42,000 homes. Over its 25-year life, this power plant requires 38 million gallons of potable water, transported by 4750 tanker trucks, and incurs $22 million in cleaning costs (without even factoring in 25 years of inflation). Cleaning over one-quarter of a million dusty solar panels multiple times a year would still result in a loss of $51 million in energy sales due to this soiling from dust. Reducing these losses and avoiding all these costs has a great impact on lowering the cost of our electricity for homes, electric vehicles, and the growing electrification of society.This SBIR Phase II project proposes to lower the cost of solar electricity, improve the reliability and predictability of solar power plants, and, importantly, eliminate the use of water in the cleaning of dusty solar panels in these desert-like regions. To address technological and scientific challenges related to this new technology, the research’s efforts will include a combination of experiments and modeling to increase the size of prototypes and verify their performance in laboratory and field conditions. The outcomes of these efforts will result in improved efficiency, lower cost, and scalability of this new approach. Our industrial partners will guide the commercialization efforts to facilitate wide adoption of this technology by the solar industry.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.