Neptune Aquatics

Who's cleaning their solar panels?

elite building services on yelp did it. they were up there with water and a brush.

here are before and after pics...apparently the before is worse than pictured cause of the condensation on the panels
 

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Jonathan Chia said:
elite building services on yelp did it. they were up there with water and a brush.

here are before and after pics...apparently the before is worse than pictured cause of the condensation on the panels
Click to expand...
Assuming the shiny one is the after, and hopefully that's just due to water because without spelling out the obvious, a really shiny, reflective solar panel is not a good solar panel :)
 
Did mine this morning. Definite visible difference, not sure about functional difference.

I think yesterday and today are supposed to be similar weather. So maybe it will be a decent comparison? So many factors though.
20200927_094723.jpg

20200927_094705.jpg

Here you can see a small spot I missed on one set of panels
20200927_094820.jpg

This is what I used. I think it was from harbor freight. Also sprayed simple green on the panels before using the brush, kinda doubt that did anything though.
20200927_081618.jpg
 
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Certainly my approach of spraying them from the ground, even with multiple passes, is no where near as effective as getting up there and scrubbing them. My roof pitch is steep and I’m not that adventurous so no way I’m getting up there to clean them myself. My neighbor said it cost him $150 to have a service come clean them, and his system is easier to get to and smaller than mine.

Before/after wash with a hose from the ground, one set of panels:

1601228157224.jpeg

1601228186133.jpeg
 
I'll post graphs at the end of the day or maybe tomorrow... But my peak is already 0.4kwh higher than it has been at any point in the last week.
 
Heres the data. Panels cleaned this morning (sunday 9-27)
There are a lot of variables that affect energy production, but this seems like a pretty big improvement.
on the bar graph, Tuesday is 19.4 kWh, Sunday is 22.5 kWh
Screenshot_20200927-213035_Tesla.jpg

Heres the graphs for each day for the last week.
solar graph.JPG
 
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My panels were definitely not JUST ash. My guess is hosing them down shortly after ash fall would be sufficient on otherwise clean panels. Possibly even the ash wouldn't make a difference.
 
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