Clean Solar Panels!

[Flyinfool]

The panels are not that high up.
Know anyone with machining capability?
Find out what kind of cleaner is safe for the panels.
Make a washer on a long telescoping pole, like the ones professional window washers use to reach high windows in places where a ladder is not practical.
Here is one source, for a 30 foot reach, there are other sizes.

Telescopic Pole - 8-30' H-7228 - Uline

Telescopes to 30' for hard-to-reach places. Use with: Window Squeegees and Washers Professional Microfiber Duster High Access Cleaning Tools ULINE offers over 41,000 boxes, plastic poly bags, mailing tubes, warehouse supplies and bubble wrap for your storage, packaging, or shipping supplies.

www.uline.com

Now some quality shop time, make something with a spinning brush head, A soap hose and a water hose running to the top. Then you can clean them yourself from the ground.

 

[MrWhoopee]

For those of us who live in the Sacramento or San Joaquin Valley, it’s a very dirty place. Lots of dust/dirt in the air. Especially around nut harvest time.

I've lived among the almond and walnut orchards. It wasn't too bad until they mechanized the pickup process.

 

[projectnut]

I'm not sold on solar panels or wind generators. Everyone I know around here that has tried either method has spent a ton of money on their system with little or no return on investment. The panels get covered with snow and ice in the winter months, in the spring they're covered with seeds, and in the fall they're covered with leaves. When they fail parts are either impossible or hard to get. When they are available they're so expensive they totally negate any savings generated by the electricity they produce.

The same is true of wind generators. Anything over 5 years old is so antiquated there are no parts available. In most cases the manufacturers have gone out of business.

As long as I'm on a tangent I'll also include comments on the electric busses the city has purchased. Over the last 2 years they bought 5 Proterra electric busses. Each cost more than twice what a normal diesel would, and currently all 5 are sitting in the garage. Most probably permanently out of service.

The company has gone bankrupt, and no replacement parts are available. Several need new batteries. They were supposed to last 6 years and have a range of 300 miles before needing to be recharged. In a period of less than 2 years they're down to a 100 mile range and are taking 8 to 12 hours to recharge. A couple need new parts for doors, but due to the current state of the manufacturer none are available.

Just to rub salt into the would the city has ordered another 60 electric busses from another manufacturer. This company has reported a $5,000,000.00 loss for the last fiscal year. How long will they last?

 

[ttabbal]

I've had solar for a few years now. How often you should clean them varies depending on your location. Some areas don't really need to clean them much, but other areas do need it. I have them cleaned off a couple times a year, seems to help, makes them look nicer anyway, and I do see some output differences. Mine mostly just get dirt from the weather on them, nothing too crazy. If you get trees dumping a pile of leaves on them, yeah, that's going to hurt performance. I generally only have a bill for a few winter months. You produce less in winter, lower sun angle, less time with light, snow, etc.. Overall, ROI is currently ahead but not by a ton. About what I expected when I installed them.

As for failures/parts, I had one inverter fail after about a year. The manufacturer replaced it under warranty. They are still around, though they are being hurt by the current economic and regulatory setup. There isn't much to go wrong with most setups. The panels themselves rarely have anything go bad, and have a warranty for 25 years. Inverters are high power switching power supplies, so I would expect them to be more likely to fail.

I don't generally recommend for or against. I tell people to investigate for themselves. Everyone's home and needs are different and what works for me might not work for you. And definitely look into arguments against them. Some people are just anti-"green" and don't like any of the alternative tech. Most just have some complaints that are valid for their area or situation. Same thing with EVs. I own a small one for commuting that I got reasonably cheap. Had it for about 5 years, the battery is still holding up well and it does everything I would like it to. It's been paid off for a few years now, and it's been great overall. It's even pretty fun to drive. I only recommend people look into it if they are interested and they have a use case that works well for them. For some people, they are great. For others, they are a very bad idea. And some people just don't like the way they drive. That's fine too.

As for the government programs... well... We all know government is pretty crap when it comes to being efficient with money and purchasing decisions. We have some electric bus and train setups here in Utah. They work ok. They are generally powered by overhead lines though, like the old trolley car setups. I think those make more sense than batteries for public transport. Even a hybrid setup would be interesting, low battery capacity, make it possible to get to the next line. We also have a fair number of large CNG vehicles around. And in some cases, Diesel is probably the best choice. I think we should use all the things, for the things they are best suited for. Sometimes that means "fossil fuel" is required. Probably more often than not, if we're being honest.

 

[Aukai]

My neighbors system had one panel fail, and he was wondering why is bill went up drastically. Apparently the one panel out will shut down the system, and run off of the commercial line. I think you stated yours was checked though.

 

[Huub Buis]

I have cleaned my solar panels after 10 years of use in the spring of that year. It resulted in a 10% production increase that year only. So I decided not to clean them again. Your panels look a lot more dirtier than mine. Do the math and decide if its worth cleaning your panels.
In the Netherlands, 72% of the solar production is in the 6 months April to September. Cleaning twice a year is not economical.

 

[GeneT45]

I wonder if those panels could handle Rain X?

I knew a fellow that made a fair living in Spain using something that seemed suspiciously like RainX to treat panels.

Dirt and grime vary wildly, and it doesn't take much to really reduce the output of a panel - and in most systems it's the weakest panel that dictates the max production. I'm not at all surprised by the improvement, nor do I think $170 every six months is any reason to start designing panel windshield washers that only require new $500 blades every year to 'fix' the problem.

@Janderso I think you're on the right track!

GsT

 

[Flyinfool]

I have been considering giving modern solar a try. I do not have enough south facing roof to zero out the power company bill but I sure could reduce it a bunch.

I used to have a solar hot water system on the house. It worked great. It used parabolic reflectors to concentrate the sun onto about 3 inch black copper pipes. the reflectors did have to track the sun across the sky. It was plumbed into the house with an 80 gallon hot water storage tank where the cold water went into the solar tank and then the output of the solar tank went to the cold water side of my gas water heater. The solar system was set so that it would turn the panels away from the sun when the water temp in the solar tank hit 180°F. that hot water would feed the gas tank so that it was also at 180°F giving a total of 130 gallons of very hot water. There was a mixing valve on the output of the gas tank so that the water temp to the house was at whatever safe temp you wanted coming out of the faucets. The gas heater never ran at all in the summer. In the winter if it was really cold and or cloudy for a while the solar tank might get down to 70° But that 70 took a lot less gas to heat up than did the 40° cumming in from the street. The system easily paid for itself before it died. The solar part was still fine it was the electronics in the sun tracking system that died during a thunderstorm with a very close lightening hit. Close as in took the chimney off the house! It was 10 years old at that time and the main board was no longer available and I could not find a similar thing to replace it. Now days it would be nothing to replace that system with a PI or similar board.

 

[Gnpenning]

I've had solar for a few years now. How often you should clean them varies depending on your location. Some areas don't really need to clean them much, but other areas do need it. I have them cleaned off a couple times a year, seems to help, makes them look nicer anyway, and I do see some output differences. Mine mostly just get dirt from the weather on them, nothing too crazy. If you get trees dumping a pile of leaves on them, yeah, that's going to hurt performance. I generally only have a bill for a few winter months. You produce less in winter, lower sun angle, less time with light, snow, etc.. Overall, ROI is currently ahead but not by a ton. About what I expected when I installed them.

As for failures/parts, I had one inverter fail after about a year. The manufacturer replaced it under warranty. They are still around, though they are being hurt by the current economic and regulatory setup. There isn't much to go wrong with most setups. The panels themselves rarely have anything go bad, and have a warranty for 25 years. Inverters are high power switching power supplies, so I would expect them to be more likely to fail.

I don't generally recommend for or against. I tell people to investigate for themselves. Everyone's home and needs are different and what works for me might not work for you. And definitely look into arguments against them. Some people are just anti-"green" and don't like any of the alternative tech. Most just have some complaints that are valid for their area or situation. Same thing with EVs. I own a small one for commuting that I got reasonably cheap. Had it for about 5 years, the battery is still holding up well and it does everything I would like it to. It's been paid off for a few years now, and it's been great overall. It's even pretty fun to drive. I only recommend people look into it if they are interested and they have a use case that works well for them. For some people, they are great. For others, they are a very bad idea. And some people just don't like the way they drive. That's fine too.

As for the government programs... well... We all know government is pretty crap when it comes to being efficient with money and purchasing decisions. We have some electric bus and train setups here in Utah. They work ok. They are generally powered by overhead lines though, like the old trolley car setups. I think those make more sense than batteries for public transport. Even a hybrid setup would be interesting, low battery capacity, make it possible to get to the next line. We also have a fair number of large CNG vehicles around. And in some cases, Diesel is probably the best choice. I think we should use all the things, for the things they are best suited for. Sometimes that means "fossil fuel" is required. Probably more often than not, if we're being honest.

I have a brother that lives in your state. Several years ago they bought a Tesla for the wife's work commute with a home charger. It has worked out great for that. When they came to visit they used their ice vehicle. They want the charge wait times and a little worried about some dead spots with no chargers. Their oldest son has a Tesla he uses for commuting as well. He travels one week a month to rock springs for work. During the winter months the Tesla stays home. The ride I got was fun. Getting in and out wasn't. Something my brother mirrored about his wife's.

They put up solar panels 2 years ago. When I've tried asking about it he doesn't want to talk about it. Apparently the real world feedback from a known numbers guy is something I won't get. Knowing him if the results were good I would hear about it.

Our local power company setup panels in a couple of their subscriptions and sold them. At the time they expected a 20 year payback on a $1000 investment with them doing all the maintenance. Took a long time to sell them and haven't tried since. We have far more cloudy days than sunny days. Location, location, location. Not a one size fits all.

I would be thrilled to get most my power from the sun, just don't think with current (pun intended) technology that is going to happen for me.

 

[Janderso]

My gut feeling is that you shouldn't have seen the difference you are experiencing because of dirty panels. Have you looked at year to year changes in weather conditions as a possible reason? Is there a possibility that some of the panels have failed?

A more definitive test would be to do a before and after measurement of output. If you have the ability to do output measurements or diagnostics with the controller, I would suggest monitoring it for a while. If you can single out an individual panel, that would be an even better test.

Actually the software associated with the product we purchased is pretty detailed.
I can dial in each cell and do a comparison by any date range I choose or look at total production.
Year over year showed a significant drop in production Around 11%.
I haven't done a comparison by panel but all seem to be acceptable. No dead cells
We did have a wet winter in 2002-2003. The previous year had a lot more sunshine. That could play a big part as cloudy days really cut into what is produced.