Solar panel cleaning time!

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Mark

1653 posts

Uber Geek
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#255830 2-Sep-2019 13:07

Mine were filthy ... covered in a layer of pollen and even lichen growing in spots!

A gentle scrub with a brush and soap and all shiny again ... probably got 500W back :-)

So if you have them and you are lazy like me, probably pays to go look at yours.

E3xtc

782 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 164

#2309775 3-Sep-2019 08:57

I asked the people about cleaning them a while back and the sentiment of the comment was along the lines of "sure if you want, but expect marginal/negligable gains"... given ours are 2 floors up, my regularity of getting up there has been somewhat off....would be interesting to know if anyone has been able to do a definitive before/after analysis to see if this is actually worth it.

trig42

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#2309785 3-Sep-2019 09:13

We have a couple of 320W panels at our bach.

Cleaning them makes a noticeable difference to the power going into the batteries when every Watt counts.

raytaylor

4076 posts

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Trusted

#2310329 3-Sep-2019 21:40

E3xtc:

I asked the people about cleaning them a while back and the sentiment of the comment was along the lines of "sure if you want, but expect marginal/negligable gains"... given ours are 2 floors up, my regularity of getting up there has been somewhat off....would be interesting to know if anyone has been able to do a definitive before/after analysis to see if this is actually worth it.

I would say its totally the opposite - it only takes a large bird crap to knock out a solar panel.
Some newer panels have bypass diodes but it only takes a bird crap or a leaf the size of a 50c coin to knock 25% of the panel out of action.

Ray Taylor

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RmACK

196 posts

Master Geek
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#2310331 3-Sep-2019 21:52

Also depends on the azimuth of your panels. The Palmerston North city council famously discovered this the hard way after installing a large system very flat. https://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/news/92593202/solar-panels-struggle-through-lack-of-cleaning

KShips

153 posts

Master Geek
+1 received by user: 15

#2310692 4-Sep-2019 15:49

We moved into a new house last weekend, panels were also covered in pollen. It's a 5kw, 20 panel system which I cleaned the 5 cleanest panels (easiest to get to) to see if it would improve much and jumped 200watts. Full sun on the first day was well under 4kw in full sun so I'm guessing we will potentially see around 1kw extra power when I clean them all.

E3xtc

782 posts

Ultimate Geek
+1 received by user: 164

#2310850 5-Sep-2019 07:33

Looks like a have another thing to put on "the list" :( lol