The coronavirus pandemic has led to a reduction in pollution around the world, which has made solar panels more efficient, according to a study reported by the website iflscience.com.
As nations around the world shut down to stem the spread of the coronavirus, the amount of pollutants in the air decreased thanks to reduced use of car and truck engines. The decreased pollution created cleaner air around the world.
Thanks to the cleaner air, solar panels were able to absorb more solar power, making them more power and cost efficient.
As iflscience.com explains:
In the journal Joule, Peters reports under cloudless conditions 950 Watts/square meter of solar energy reached the solar panels in late March 2020 compared to 880 W/m2 on equivalent dates in 2017-2019. An 8 percent difference may sound minor, but it’s “Equivalent to the difference between what a PV installation in Houston would produce compared with one in Toronto,” Peters noted.