Optimum cleaning schedule of photovoltaic systems based on levelised cost of energy and case study in central Mexico

•A method for optimising cleaning schedules in photovoltaic systems is developed.•It minimises the levelised cost of energy and is applied to central Mexico.•Residential and commercial systems should be cleaned once per year in the region.•Utility-scale systems can be cleaned each 12–31 days as a function of cleaning costs.•A comparative analysis to other existing methods for the same case study is done. In this paper, the soiling impact on photovoltaic systems in Aguascalientes, in central Mexico, an area where 1.4GWp of new photovoltaic capacity is being installed, is characterised experimentally. A soiling rate of −0.16%/day in the dry season for optimally tilted crystalline silicon modules, and a stabilization of the soiling losses at 11.2% after 70 days of exposure were observed. With these data, a first of its kind novel method for determining optimum cleaning schedules is proposed based on minimising the levelised cost of energy. The method has the advantages compared to other existing methods of considering the system investment cost in the determination of the optimum cleaning schedule. Also, it does not depend on economic revenue data, which are often subject to uncertainty. The results show that residential and commercial systems should be cleaned once per year in Aguascalientes. On the other hand, cleaning intervals from 12 to 31 days in the dry season were estimated for utility-scale systems, due to the dramatic decrease of cleaning costs per unit photovoltaic capacity. We also present a comparative analysis of the existing criteria for optimising cleaning schedules applied to the same case study. The different methods give similar cleaning intervals for utility-scale systems and, thus, the choice of a suitable method depends on the availability of information.