Cleaning Your Solar Panels Can Help With Efficiency

If you have a residential solar energy system installed, your solar panels are commonly flat, tilted, and rooftop mounted. How often do you wash your roof? Presumably not very often, most plausibly never. Why’s that? I hear you responding “Isn’t that what rain is for?” That’s kind of the same reasoning for solar panels too.

In most cases, you won’t need to wash your solar panels often, if at all. After all, anything that collects dirt on them (for example, dust or pollen), will get washed off the next time it rains. Seldom it might make sense to clean your solar panels though. If you’ve got a lot of bird droppings on your solar panels, rain might not wash these off very quickly, so it’s a good idea to clean them off. Also, if you live in a state that’s prone to dryness – or, if it rains, it’s only a very light, hazy rain, you might need to clean them now and then.

Wash On Wash Off

Do dirt and debris influence the effectiveness of your solar panels? And if so, how much? Well, yes and no. And, not greatly. Yes, dirt and debris can alter how much sunlight gets through to convert the light to energy. But, the amount the efficiency is reduced is minute, possibly 5% or less. And, with a standard 5kW solar system, this might equate to about $20 of loss in your energy bill. Not periodically – overall. And frequently, even if we are talking about areas with drought, ultimately when it does rain, a couple of months down the line, everything will be washed away, and it might not even be meriting it to deal with the hassle of cleaning it in the first place.

How You Will Clean Solar Panels With Your Brain And Brawn

If you do determine your solar panels need to be washed, there are two main ways of doing it: hire an expert or do it yourself. A lot of solar companies will offer this type of service to you, for a fee of a path. They might offer it as part of an annual maintenance service or suggest you get it done every so often when they come to install the product. The truth is, what you get back cost-wise in your power bill does not exceed the amount you need to shell out to these companies to perform the work. Solar companies often charge a sheer quantity to do this cleaning, for not much return on your energy bill.

There are ways to discover if your solar panels need cleaning to begin with. One is physical inspection of the panels for debris, dirt, bird droppings, etc. The other way is the use of a monitoring system that alerts you to how well your solar panels are functioning and performing. This can alert you to any maintenance needs for your solar panel system, whether that’s mechanical, electrical, or cleanliness.

Soap, Water, Soap, Water, Soap, Water, Muscle, Sweat, Tears, Joy

The most efficient way to clean your solar panels is with a hose and a bucket of soapy water. Necessarily, in the same manner, you would wash your car at home. Because you don’t want to damage the panels in any way, it’s best to use just water and a non-abrasive sponge to apply foamy water. Keep in mind that you shouldn’t use any high-pressure water sprayer when washing off your solar panels. A high-pressure attachment can damage the solar panels themselves.

We hope we have given you some great tips on how to clean your solar panels, now, if you want to buy more solar panels, then HahaSmart is the way to go.