Temporary Performance Degradation of Photovoltaic Street Light in Kupang City, Nusa Tenggara Timur Province, Indonesia

¹ Department of Electrical Engineering, Politeknik Negeri Kupang, Jl. Adisucipto, Kupang 85258, Nusa Tenggara Timur, Indonesia
² Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politeknik Negeri Kupang, Jl. Adisucipto, Kupang 85258, Nusa Tenggara Timur, Indonesia
³ Department of Civil Engineering, Politeknik Negeri Kupang, Jl. Adisucipto, Kupang, 85258, Nusa Tenggara Timur Indonesia
⁴ Graduate School of Engineering Science and Technology Construction Engineering, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, 123 University Road, Section 3, Douliu City, Yunlin County, 64002, Taiwan

^* Corresponding author: julius_halan@yahoo.co.id

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of dust to the performance degradation of PV street lights deployed at several areas (coastal, urban, industry, and village) in Kupang city. Results showed that maximum power output (P_max) of all modules decreased by 9 % to 14 %. Short circuit current (I_sc) was the parameter strongly affected by dust compared to open circuit voltage (V_oc). Performance of the PV modules increased back to their initial conditions after cleaning. This was indicated by the increasing of Isc and Voc of the modules that leading to the escalating of their Pmax values. The worst effect of dust was exhibited by PV modules installed at coastal area. A simple analysis revealed that the module would lose 87.75 Wh of energy d^–1. This study suggested that dust derating factor applied for PV street light design in Kupang should be higher than the standard (5 %).