Do I have to clean my solar panels?
weijing3333
| Posted in General Questions on
Given that there isn’t too much rain to help with the cleaning, what is the typical solar panel maintenance attention that you would anticipate:
Is solar panel cleaning just typically wetting them down with hoses, or hand scrubbing? Dust obviously and a lot of birds out there.
Every other day, once a week, once a month?
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Replies
Jing Wei,
There is no single answer to your question, because of variations in weather from one location to the next.
I have had photovoltaic (solar) panels on my roof for 35 years, and I have never washed them -- not once. We get plenty of rain and snow in Vermont.
If you live somewhere without much rain, and you live near a dirt road where lots of dust is generated by passing traffic, your situation will be different from mine.
Managers of utility-scale PV projects answer your question with a cost/benefit analysis. If the cost to pay laborers to wash the panels is more than the value of the extra electricity that might be gathered, then it's not worth cleaning the panels.
Homeowners usually don't do such a cost/benefit analysis, because the labor is free. It can still be a pain to clean your panels, so only you can decide whether the hassle is worth it.
Try aiming a garden hose at your panels -- that might make a big difference. If you have lots of bird excrement, and you want to do a perfect job, you may need to get up on the roof with a rag or a squeegee.