How do you clean your panels?

[vballdad]

I tried to clean mine with a car wash brush and a hose. 66 panels on a 6/12 pitch roof was a one and done deal for me.
My neighbor, West Palm Beach Fireman, has a solar panel cleaning company in Lake Worth FL. He has the equipment and experience on roofs.
He cleans it twice a year for me. Always early in the morning. Bird Poop and Pollen are the sticky items rain doesn't remove.

[azdave]

what you need is one of those poles window cleaners use, they are long telescopic poles with brushes on the end that also spray water. you can use these to clean solar panels very effectively from the ground. I would either buy yourself one of these water fed poles or get a local window cleaning company to clean them every now and then for you

Interesting screen name when you are here recommending people use a window cleaning company. Unfortunately, the money spent on a service like that will never be recouped in savings.

[ukwindowcleaner]

I need to clean the panels on the roof of my detached garage. How do you guys clean your panels? The entire one side of the my roof (32 feet wide by 17 feet) is covered with panels. The city and fire chief allowed me to cover the whole side of the roof with no walkways since they don't vent detached garages in case of fire.

I was looking at 16 foot painter's poles at the store yesterday, but none of them seem very sturdy at 16 feet. I didn't buy one because the window cleaning heads with threads would not fit on any of the really long poles. I was thinking about standing on the other side of the roof to clean, but then I couldn't use the squeegee to get the water off. I would like to avoid cleaning from a ladder if possible.

what you need is one of those poles window cleaners use, they are long telescopic poles with brushes on the end that also spray water. you can use these to clean solar panels very effectively from the ground. I would either buy yourself one of these water fed poles (wfp)or get a local window cleaning company to clean them every now and then for you

[Mike 134]

The problem here has been trees dripping some sap onto several panels. I
did not find anything that would remove sap, but taking it down and scraping
with a blade gave full recovery. Bruce Roe

I use alcohol to remove pine tar from the truck's paint, in a pinch hand sanitizer with 70% alcohol works.

[bcroe]

The problem here has been trees dripping some sap onto several panels. I
did not find anything that would remove sap, but taking it down and scraping
with a blade gave full recovery. Bruce Roe

[Zardiw]

That's fine if you live in an area with halfway decent rain fall.
I live in Palm Springs..........where rain is RARE...
And you wouldn't believe how much crap gets deposited..........lol
And it DOES have an effect on output.........think about it.

z

[silversaver]

I stop washing the panel about 5 years ago. Just wait for rain to clean them up. I do not find the extra production with clean panels over the time and effort spent. If you really want to clean the panels if easy access for you, then maybe twice per year is the most I'll ever do.

[Zardiw]

Mine are ground accessible, so I just hose them off periodically. I used to sqeegie them afterwards, but I have found that over the years, they somehow just sheet off the water without beading, so there are no deposits formed...

I have also tried various coatings like ceramic for cars, but they tend to bead up water.

z

[scrambler]

Install a sprinkler system on the roof top

[Ward L]

It does not rain much here. About 4" in the last year. We do get fog, which is close to rain, but not quite the same as it could actually attract dirt. I cleaned two of my 40 x 250W panels after 7 months of service and could not measure an improvement. I have not cleaned all of my panels since they were installed in May 2014, only the two panels in December 2014. I track peak solar production monthly of the panels thinking total production for a month will be dependent upon cloud cover, fog, etc. Peak production will reflect panel efficiency better. Over the 7 years of no cleaning, the peak solar production has dropped 2.8%/year. If panels decline 1% a year due to ageing, I have 1.8% a year due to fouling. My Enphase software says I am at 99% of estimated production and have generated lifetime 124.5 MWh which sounds pretty good, but I recall Enphase calculating I was well above expected generation when the panels were new. If I did my math correctly, on average I would be saving about $300/year if my panels were clean and I only suffered the 1%/year decline. This says in my most recent year of production, I have lost about $500 in electrons due to dirty panels. Meaning, if I cleaned the panels, I would gain $500 of increased production. This is based on 28 cents/kWh. My rooftop install is NOT easy to clean, but I think I could get them cleaned for less than $500 producing a pretty good payback. My point is you have to have high electricity rates and cheap cleaning costs to be cleaning panels very often. I should get my panels cleaned and see if I have a 10% bump in production. Obviously, everyone's situation is different due to dust accumulation, ease of cleaning and costs.

[J.P.M.]

The first step is to wash your car... that should almost guarantee it rains.

+1 !

[heimdm]

The first step is to wash your car... that should almost guarantee it rains.

[J.P.M.]

Some of us who live where it actually rains, never clean our panels. Bruce Roe

As I wrote, some of what was written was so general as to be off the mark.

[bcroe]

For the effective benefits of solar panels, it is extremely important to
clean them on regular basis.

Some of us who live where it actually rains, never clean our panels. Bruce Roe

[J.P.M.]

For the effective benefits of solar panels, it is extremely important to clean them on regular basis. Dust particles and other irrelevant things present on the solar panel highly reduce the efficiency of the solar panels. Hence it is an ideal practice to keep their maintenance on high priority.

While cleaning the solar panel surface the care should be taken as its surface is made up of photovoltaic glass and should be handled with care. Make sure you do not use harmful objects like brushes and pointed needles it may harm the solar panel.

You can make use of dedicated liquid and sponges to clean the solar panel surface.

You sound (read) like one of those academic types (too) long on classroom/textbook learning and/or at least very short on real world and experiential working knowledge.

You ever been on a roof and cleaned an array ?

You ever monitor and measure actual, working array performance or array fouling rates ?

I've done a lot of both.

Some of what you write may make sense in an academic no brainer way, but it's not entirely on the mark and so general as to be misleading.

It's important to keep an array clean but in a more relative and case/case basis and for reasons additional to array production itself.

Some other comments:

"Extremely" is not a word I'd use in that context unless I wanted to incite uncertainty and/or fear in the uneducated.
I'd suggest that dust particles are anything but irrelevant.
"highly reduce the efficiency" is, IMO, a high exaggeration. and anyway, since array fouling rates are highly site, orientation and weather dependent, that may or may not be accurate. It's too general a statement.
BTW, most needles do come to a point.
Dedicated liquids and sponges may make sense, but it seems more important to me to describe the characteristics of those materials. Soft cloth, decent dish soap and plain old tap water work just fine. Fancy materials are a con.