After acquiring a set of solar panels, there is just one thing you need to keep doing to make sure the electricity bill stays low over time, and that is to clean your solar panels. Due to the nature of dust-gathering over time and the occasional bird-poop droppings, your solar panels are destined to decrease in performance over time. The upside of this is that you can prevent any serious decrease in performance with an occasional wash. Of course, this is not something that you need to do every week but rather something that needs to be done every 4-8 months, to ensure maximum efficiency and bang for your buck.
So, where do I start?
Before starting the process of cleaning, you should first prepare yourself by taking the necessary safety steps and ensure that your solar panel system is turned off entirely. If you do not know how to do this, the procedure should be listed in the user manual, but if you do not have access to this, a simple Google search will help you out. Second, you should evaluate if any additional equipment is needed to ensure full safety when doing work on top of the roof. If possible, you should do the cleaning from the ground, to prevent the harms and dangers that are associated with performing work on rooftops.
If you have successfully completed these steps, it is now time to get the equipment ready.
The required equipment
Luckily, the process of cleaning solar panels does not require top-of-the-range equipment and expensive chemicals, making it an affordable and easy procedure. To clean your solar panels, you just need:
A bucket of water
Soft cloth
Sponge
Mild Soap
Long extension (if accessible)
The cleaning process
Use the water
To start the procedure of cleaning your solar panels, you should try to get off as much grime and dust as possible just using the water. To avoid the risk of rubbing in sharp particles and creating scratches on the surface, which in turn will decrease the solar performance, you should try to only use water to remove excess dust and grime.
Use cloth, sponge, and soap for stubborn grime
In case there are still spots where bird-poop, grime or dust will not come off with just water, you should gently use the cloth in combination with the soap to rub it off. Finish off with the sponge to ensure all excess water and soap is absorbed into the sponge, avoiding the heat from evaporating the water and leaving dirty marks. Use a long extension if available, to either reach hard spots easier or to perform the job from the ground.
Only clean the tops
In cleaning your solar panels, it is important to understand that cleaning the bottom part will not enhance the performance. In fact, we recommend you to not intentionally try to clean out the bottom or the gaps of the solar panel, as this is more likely to cause problems than anything else.
Cleaning High-Quality Solar Panels
As previously mentioned, cleaning your solar panels is not something that you need to do weekly. In fact, there are many aspects that go into how often you should clean, such as:
The quality of the solar panel (solar glass quality)
Method of installation (is solar panel lying flat or at an angle?)
The usual weather conditions in your area
Your surroundings (e.g. dirt road, airport, highway)
High-quality solar panels, like REA Solar’s, often require less maintenance, due to high-quality solar glass, which ensures a smooth surface that allows for rain to catch most of the dust and grime. Despite often being more expensive, the high-quality solar panels require less maintenance over time, which in turn saves you either a lot of time from doing yourself, or money from paying for a service (sometimes both).