Now you make me want to come up with a controversial source. The Martian rovers continued to operate at useful power level for decades without cleaning.
Thank you for providing a source. That’s an early stage research paper, not the proven solution you originally implied. There are tons of early stage research papers on all these problems on earth and in space. Often we encounter a bunch of complications in applying them at scale such as dew-related cementation[1], which is a key reason why they haven’t been deployed at sufficient scale.
That you point to the Mars rover, a mission with extremely budgeted power requirements, as proof of how soiling doesn’t pose an impediment to mega scale desert solar farms, only underscores the flaw in your reasoning.
“I don’t want to get into a debate about the relative validity of sources etc”
> Not the proven solution
Yet you quote a paper saying it can work. “This impact can have a positive or negative effect depending on the climatic conditions and the surface properties.”
I have no interest in debating with you because I don’t believe you are capable of a honest debate here. The physics doesn’t change and the physics is what matters.
> doesn’t pose an impediment
Nope. I said it beats “space” not that soiling doesn’t exist. That’s what you have to demonstrate here and you have provided zero evidence whatsoever supporting that viewpoint. Hell they could replace the entire array every 5 years and it would still beat space.. Even if what you said was completely true, you still lose the argument.
The argument here is simply over your false claim that "You don’t need to do anything to keep panels with a significant angle clear of dust in deserts." Your only source does not, in fact, establish that, and cementation is in fact a challenge with desert solar -- something that happens much faster than every five years.
Repeating unsupported claims and declaring yourself the winner does not, it turns out, actually help you win an argument.
But but lack of water…