Grid-scale solar on Delta soils: first-year findings

The array on the Ugbowo campus has now run for a full year, which is the shortest period over which anything useful can be said about a site that has both a harmattan and a rainy season.

Output tracked the manufacturer's figures closely between April and October and fell away sharply from late November, when dust deposition rather than cloud cover became the limiting factor. Cleaning at fortnightly intervals recovered most of it; cleaning monthly did not.

The finding that matters for anyone costing an installation here is that the maintenance interval, not the panel rating, is what decides the annual yield. A specification written around equipment alone will be wrong by a margin wide enough to change whether a site pays for itself.

Work continues on whether an anti-soiling coating shifts that interval far enough to pay for itself over a ten-year life.