Soiling loss operations

Soiling is the presence of snow, dirt, soil, dust and other particles on the surfaces of your solar panels. It is one of many factors that can affect the irradiance received by the solar panels in your plant.

"Soiling loss" is the industry term for the monetary losses caused by soiling. Registering soiling loss operations allows GPM SCADA to take into account the real conditions of the panels in your plant. This allows you to have more accurate KPIs.

The system calculates losses by comparing the irradiance values of soiled panels with two panels that serve as references. The first reference panel is one that receives daily cleaning. The second reference panel is a specific panel from each zone of your plant.

You can register soiling loss operations to inform GPM SCADA of when the cleaning of a panel occurs. This also serves to calculate the offset that panels have due to the manufacturing process, aging, or just because they are different models.

Soiling losses are expressed as percentages. The system calculates them using the following formula:
Figure 1.
Soiling loss formula
For the calculation to work, you must enter three values in the application:
  • the cleaning operation for the reference panel.
  • the cleaning operation for the reference zone.
  • an offset calculation.

You can track and manage all soiling loss operations from the Soiling Loss panel of the Plant Dashboard module.