Solclean
Project Summary
To design an easy-to-produce, sustainable and low-maintenance product that allowed the efficiency of a solar panel installation to not be hindered by dust collection.
Project Goal
Dust collection can drastically reduce the efficiency of a solar panel. Current solutions either involve using excess water, which is not environment friendly, or are very expensive, which makes effective utilisation of renewable energy less affordable. To combat this issue, I designed and prototyped a product that was affordable, costing under INR 6000, and was sustainable and flexible in terms of the variety of solar power systems it was compatible with.
Research and Ideation
Cleaning solar panels in India today is inefficient and wastes a lot of water, and can often be labour and capital intensive process. The ability to reduce the toll of this process can directly help in its adoption, prolonging the life of photovoltaic cells and maximising energy collection.
Idea 1
This concept featured a unique form, and a vacuum pump to remove dust from the panels. It could also navigate through the panels through the data feed from the dual cameras on the top, and an accompanying Arduino Uno compute unit. Filtered air would exit through perforations on the back of the concept.
Idea 2
This idea used a more conventional design form which turned out to be more stable. Utilising a Roomba® inspired mechanism to clean the solar panels through a sponge and cleaning fluid, it also provided up-to 37% cleaner surfaces with a much smaller energy footprint and faster than Idea 1.
Since the focus of this product was to clean the solar panels in an eco-friendly manner, I chose to move forward with Concept 2, as detailed on the next page.
The product was named Solclean, a combination of the words Sol (meaning Sun) and clean, denoting its purpose.
Concept Development
Prototype Production
I created a styrofoam model of the product to estimate appearance and identify any possible compatibility issues. Then, once the issues were identified using the mockup as a reference product, the CAD model was amended and engineering drawings were produced to facilitate easy interpretation of the planned production stages. A flowchart was made to plan out feasible manufacturing and assembly processes.
The materials were processed to spec as per CAD details and once the quality was optimal, finishing was done in the form of paint and gap-filling via putty.
Solclean Prototype
Once the final prototype was created, there were several minor changes to the design of the product as opposed to the CAD and mockup planning. Due to these changes, I conducted a survey after a demonstration of the product and its capabilities by multiple users to find out whether the product still functioned in accordance to the product specifications, and if there were any aspects that could be improved through refinements in design. The following results were obtained as a result of the surveys and feedback sessions conducted-
Final Concept Renders
Application UI/UX Design
