Effect of dust accumulation on the power output of 1.2 MW PV power plant in Shiraz

There is a great potential for solar power utilization inShiraz, Iran. In this article a 1.2 MW PV power plant isstudied for Shiraz using SAM software. The analysis isconcerned power reduction due to soiling in Shiraz. Soilingloss is considered in the simulation in order to findsignificant impact of this factor and determine the lossesoccurred due to the soiling accumulated on photovoltaicmodules. For the selected modules with considering Shirazenvironment condition and solar radiation statistics theannual average performance ratio and capacityfactor are found to be 0.8 and 19.2% respectively.The average annual energy yield of the plant isfound to be 1697.25 kWh/kWp.