Comparison of Soiling Effect of Two Different Solar Mirrors in Mid-South of Morocco

Mirror reflectivity losses due to soiling is a major limiting efficiency factor that should be taken into consideration during the operations of CSP power plants. For this reason, in this study we assessed the impact of soiling on the reflectivity losses of two different solar mirrors (aluminum and glass) installed at the site of Green Energy Park at Benguerir in the mid-south of Morocco for a period of more than 18 weeks. The loss of reflectivity was measured on a weekly cycle using a portable reflectometer. In addition, we have weighted the mirror samples before and after exposition in order to quantify the density of dust deposition. The obtained results show that aluminum was less affected by dust in comparison to the glass mirrors in term of reflectivity losses. Besides, some climatic parameters as the relative humidity and rainfall can have a significant impact on the soiling rate with different pattern for each mirror sample.