Development and Cleaning Cycle Optimization of Photovoltaic Module Cleaning Robot

In order to achieve a highly automated and low-cost solution to replace regular manual cleaning and improve the economic benefits of distributed photovoltaic (PV) system, an intelligent operation and maintenance cleaning robot and cleaning cycle optimization method was developed in this paper. The three-dimensional model of the moving vehicle, cleaning roller and control system of the cleaning robot are designed. And then the cleaning cycle optimization model of dust on PV modules was built based on the developed cleaning robot. Cleaning test and optimization results showed that using the robot to clean PV modules with dust accumulation of 4 g/m
²
, 6 g/m
²
and 8 g/m
²
, and the cleaning efficiency reached 92.14%, 91.04%, and 90.09%, respectively. Compared with manual cleaning, the optimal cleaning cycle was reduced from 48.3 days to 26.5 days, and the cleaning cost was reduced from 223200 yuan to 30600 yuan for 2MW distributed PV system. The cleaning cost is greatly reduced, while the cleaning frequency is increased, and the power generation is improved.