TY - JOUR
T1 - Substantial reduction of solar photovoltaic potential in China by an extreme dust event
AU - Yin, Ke
AU - Yao, Fei
AU - Luo, Neng
AU - Gao, Meng
AU - Lu, Xiao
AU - Yi, Bingqi
N1 - This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 42522505, 42375092). The authors also acknowledge funding from the project supported by the Innovation Group Project of Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai) (No. 311024001), the Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province (2023B1212060019, 2025B1515020034), and the Zhujiang Talent Program of the Department of Science and Technology of Guangdong Province (2017GC010619). The authors are thankful for the technical support from the National Large Scientific and Technological Infrastructure “Earth System Numerical Simulation Facility” (https://cstr.cn/31134.02.EL). F.Y. was supported by the National Environment Research Council through the National Centre for Earth Observation (#NE/R016518/1). The authors sincerely thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions, which greatly improved the paper.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2026.
PY - 2026/1/14
Y1 - 2026/1/14
N2 - Aerosols suspended in the atmosphere and deposited on solar panels reduce the solar power generation through dimming and soiling effects, respectively. Here we evaluate the impact of a six-day extreme dust event in March 2021 on the solar photovoltaic potential using an atmospheric chemical transport model integrated with a radiative transfer and a photovoltaic estimation module. The solar photovoltaic potential is found to be substantially reduced by up to 70% during this event, with the dimming effect accounting for 84-89% of the reduction and the soiling effect contributing about 16%. The estimated economic loss for the large-scale photovoltaic facilities in the affected regions is around 1.36 million American dollars, accounting for half of the installed capacity. Our results further reveal the intensified dust impact on photovoltaic potential under the control of anthropogenic emissions, which highlights the possibly stronger threat of future dust events on solar power generation under future cleaner atmosphere.
AB - Aerosols suspended in the atmosphere and deposited on solar panels reduce the solar power generation through dimming and soiling effects, respectively. Here we evaluate the impact of a six-day extreme dust event in March 2021 on the solar photovoltaic potential using an atmospheric chemical transport model integrated with a radiative transfer and a photovoltaic estimation module. The solar photovoltaic potential is found to be substantially reduced by up to 70% during this event, with the dimming effect accounting for 84-89% of the reduction and the soiling effect contributing about 16%. The estimated economic loss for the large-scale photovoltaic facilities in the affected regions is around 1.36 million American dollars, accounting for half of the installed capacity. Our results further reveal the intensified dust impact on photovoltaic potential under the control of anthropogenic emissions, which highlights the possibly stronger threat of future dust events on solar power generation under future cleaner atmosphere.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105027542331
U2 - 10.1038/s43247-025-03123-1
DO - 10.1038/s43247-025-03123-1
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:105027542331
SN - 2662-4435
VL - 7
JO - Communications Earth and Environment
JF - Communications Earth and Environment
IS - 1
M1 - 44
ER -
