Impact of Aerosols and Clouds on Solar Energy generation leading to financial loss

What is the News?

A team of Indian and international researchers have conducted a study to understand the economic impact of aerosols, dust, and clouds on solar energy generation from the photovoltaic and rooftop solar installation.

What did the study find out?

Solar Energy Generation has been widely used in developing countries such as India which has sufficient solar resources.

However, clouds and aerosols limit the solar irradiance causing performance issues in the solar energy generation from photovoltaic and rooftop solar installations.

The performance issues also result in substantial economic impact. The study has estimated that the impact of total aerosol optical depth on Photovoltaic and rooftop installations amount to an annual financial loss of upto 1.55 million Rupees and the corresponding financial loss due to dust and clouds is 0.56 and 2.47 million Rupees.

This estimation can help the Indian solar energy producers and the electricity handling entities for efficient transmission and distribution system operations and grid stability optimization.

Source: This post is based on the article “Impact of Aerosols and Clouds on Solar Energy generation leading to financial loss” published in PIB on 3rd September 2021.