Solar panels are gaining popularity as a climate-friendly, clean source of energy but, if they are contaminated by dust or dirt, their efficiency drops by up to 50 percent. However, a former group of engineering technology students at Red Deer Polytechnic has been recognized for their solution to this common problem.

Former Red Deer Polytechnic engineering technology students Kyle Victor, Carson West and Nathan Crombie have developed a pneumatic air blast cleaning system that requires little maintenance, is cost effective and simple to install, fully automatic, does not require water supply, has few moving parts, can operate in any climate, adapts to any panel array geometry, and has the potential to be powered by the same solar panel system designed to clean.

The former team was honored as a provincial finalist for the Association of Science and Engineering Technology Professionals of Alberta’s (ASET) Capstone Project of the Year Award.


In the former team’s prototype, a pneumatic air sprayer was attached to the top of the solar panel and another in the middle. An air compressor with tubing is connected to the sprayers. The Arduino kit, which is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software, is programmed to run a set sequence on each sprayer. When the process starts, the top sprayer sprays the air for a few seconds. When dust is removed from the top half of the panel, the top sprayer turns off and the middle sprayer turns on for a few seconds to carry the already moving dust away from the rest of the panel.

“Our team has two goals for this project. The first is to create a design that can be used in residential and industrial solar panel systems. The second is to ensure that it is cheaper and more efficient than the cleaning systems available. now,” said former team member Victor. “Our system can deploy a solar panel in seconds unlike other systems where, depending on the location of the panel, that panel can be the end of the line which is waiting to be cleaned and may be spending hours operating at low efficiency.”

“The former Red Deer Polytechnic team should be commended for their clear-eyed approach to solving a practical issue related to solar energy,” said ASET CEO Barry Cavanaugh. “It represents an important step forward in maximizing the efficiency of an important clean energy source, and exemplifies the combination of practicality and innovation that characterizes the technology engineering profession.”

The former Red Deer Polytechnic team’s project is one of the eight finalists named by ASET for the 2022 Capstone Project of the Year Award. The winning project will be announced later this year.

The Capstone Project of the Year Award was established by ASET in 2017 in response to overwhelming member interest in back-to-school stories about Capstone projects undertaken by teams of engineering technology students from NAIT, SAIT, Red Deer Polytechnic and Lethbridge College as part of their requirements at the end of the program.