One of the main problems to spread panels in the desert is that, you should hire someone to clean them otherwise you will lose a lot of your efficiency.
On average, panels lost a little less than 0.05 percent of their overall efficiency per day.
Few days ago, a Tokyo-based company has a solution. Sinfonia Technology announced late last month that it has developed a robot with camera and sensors that can move autonomously and clean solar panels at large-scale solar power plants. Sinfonia's robot has a distinction in being "autonomous" in that, rather than tethered to rails, the robot is able to move from panel to panel, to tackle the panels' dirt and debris. The robot is equipped with a scrub brush, wiper and detergent; and also sprinkles water stored in its tank. The robot can work in the dark; it has LEDs, having wavelengths in the infrared range.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-12-robot-wiper-tackles-solar-panel.html#jCp
I guess if the cleaning robot itself gets its energy from solar panels, it's essentially free (assuming your cleaning apparatus doesn't need cleaning/refilling itself.
0.05 % loss per day accumulates a lot over months.
Once the algorithms and the robot is built this process will be essentially free, assuming cleaning is pretty good. So my answer would be yes, it's a good deal.
A simple, and probably more effective and low cost solution would be to use a system similar to a car-windshield wiper, in which each panel has it's own wiper(s).
In such a system, one or more of the following options can be applied:
1) A simple open-loop, time based system, in which the wipers (and possibly some water (but remember, water is already scarce in the desert) ) cleans the panels once every day.
2) The other option would be to let the system decide when to use the wiper (for example: when power output from the panels drops while lighting conditions are optimum)
4) Let a human decide when to use the wipers.
This option may possess many advantages, such as, but not limited to:
1- It is an already available, proven technology, simple system.
2- It can work in almost all weather conditions (cold, hot, humid, rainy, sunny, dark ....etc.)
3- Since it's low-tech., it requires no special technical staff to operate or maintain it.
I hope the above proves useful to your work.
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