How is Saharan dust impacting solar power?

This month in Climate Now we are in southern Spain to report on the growing issue of Saharan dust hitting solar energy production.

It comes as the Copernicus Climate Change Service revealed that May 2024 was the warmest on record, with temperatures 0.65 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average.

It's the 12th month in a row to witness the warmest temperatures for the respective month.

In May 2024, we saw extreme weather in many areas. Flooding in Brazil displaced more than half a million people, the Delhi region of India hit a new monthly record of 49.9 degrees Celsius, and Finland issued a heatwave warning as it hit 27 degrees Celsius.

In Europe, heavy rain led to flooding in southwestern Germany, Belgium and northern Italy.

Saharan dust is best known in Europe for tinting the sky orange, reducing air quality and leaving a fine layer of dust across rooftops and cars. Yet it also responsible for a growing issue, the so-called 'soiling' of solar cells.

At the University of Jaén in Andalucía we met Dr Eduardo F Fernández and Professor Florencia Almonacid, who were among the authors of a recent paper that found that a heavy soiling event in March 2022 reduced solar energy production capacity by up to 80 percent.

Dr Fernández told Euronews: "It looked like the environment of Mars, because everything turned all red."

March 2022 was an extreme event, but even small amounts of dust can reduce the sunlight reaching solar cells by 15%, and with the rapid growth of solar energy in Europe, losses from soiling could come to represent billions of euros annually.

So, the research team at Jaén are using their optical laboratories to find solutions. Some scientists focus on developing dust-resistant coatings, while others investigate how dust