Cleaning Solar Panels

Ernabr said:
3.5% doesn't sound like a lot, but increase the fuel or electricity price by that percentage and hear people complain...
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Yup, but when you look at 500w extra
 
Took a quick pic before cleaning panels today - not a great image but this is two weeks worth of highveld winter dust:

814d23de-ea5e-447f-975e-d08a493adc9f.jpg


New cleaning gadget working well. Step ladder I'm using is a bit sketch but all in all far easier than before.
 
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You can see from that pic that we had a few drops of rain this morning in Johazardsburg. Actually looking a bit ominous to the west now.
 
Okay now it's raining and dark :( even though the really dark clouds blew over
 
Lupus said:
It can move away now, rain is making it freezing and I've got a leak by my new panels
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Oh no. Tile moved?

I'm tentatively waiting for spring/summer to see if my roof repairs were a success.
 
Flanders said:
Oh no. Tile moved?

I'm tentatively waiting for spring/summer to see if my roof repairs were a success.
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From what can be seen, it looks like one of the tiles isn't flush where the mount goes in, so the installer is going to come and check wtf.
 
So it's apparent that clean panels can make a difference. What also seems apparent is the effect caused by air quality itself. Air quality in Jhb has been quite terrible lately. On Saturday AQI was at around 150 and today I'm seeing 104. This is likely due to the amount of dust and particles in the air due to the wind at this time of year without any rain.

I cleaned really dusty panels on Friday but have not seen a huge difference since. Even with no clouds I'm barely hitting 80% of peak and today it's 77%.

Bottom line is we need some rain to clean up the air.
 
Flanders said:
So it's apparent that clean panels can make a difference. What also seems apparent is the effect caused by air quality itself. Air quality in Jhb has been quite terrible lately. On Saturday AQI was at around 150 and today I'm seeing 104. This is likely due to the amount of dust and particles in the air due to the wind at this time of year without any rain.

I cleaned really dusty panels on Friday but have not seen a huge difference since. Even with no clouds I'm barely hitting 80% of peak and today it's 77%.

Bottom line is we need some rain to clean up the air.
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Yup, the air quality over the last 5 days has not been great, also noticed not hitting as high peaks. Might just hose the panels down tonight.
 
Lupus said:
Yup, the air quality over the last 5 days has not been great, also noticed not hitting as high peaks. Might just hose the panels down tonight.
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Went hiking in Magalies yesterday and you couldn't see the mountains at all not very far away - all blanketed by a dusty, smoggy haze.
 
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