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| ▲ | darkwater 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Lies. I'm using solar panels since 2022, still producing same peak energy and not cleaned them once. Some companies/electricians will try to sell you a cleaning and maintenance service for ~80-100EUR/year here but it's basically throwing money. |
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| ▲ | eitally 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I live in a fairly arid place (Bay Area) where it rains in winter but gets quite dry and dusty in the summer. I've had rooftop solar since 2016 and have noticed that generation decreases by as much as 8-10% when the panels are covered in summer dust. | | |
| ▲ | nehal3m 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I wonder if it's worth setting up a sort of sprinkler system so you can easily clean it by opening a valve. Maybe add a pipe with some holes in it to the top of the panel, and some flexible hose to hook it up to the next one. |
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| ▲ | lostlogin 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Where are you getting this maintenance schedule from? I haven’t touched ours, they are clean and have been going fine with zero maintenance, though admittedly it’s only been a year. |
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| ▲ | DetectDefect 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I haven’t touched ours, they are clean and have been going fine with zero maintenance, though admittedly it’s only been a year. > Where are you getting this maintenance schedule from? The solar panel owner does not know the required maintenance they are now permanently responsible for. Ibid, your honor. | | |
| ▲ | otterley 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You’re being extremely argumentative all over the comments to this story. Do you yourself own any solar panels? Your ceaseless naysaying constantly contradicts people’s lived experience (including mine) as owners. Focus on solutions, not trying to be right. It’s aggravating. | | |
| ▲ | rsynnott 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Your ceaseless naysaying constantly contradicts people’s lived experience (including mine) as owners. Also, like, every study on this matter. The efficiency drop from being dirty for vaguely modern solar panels is _tiny_; below 5% and potentially below 1%. |
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| ▲ | lostlogin 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | They are clean, I can see that and could wipe them if I needed to. The power output is the same. Where are you getting this maintenance schedule of yours from? | | |
| ▲ | triceratops 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Where are you getting this maintenance schedule of yours from? Their "Anti-Solar Talking Points" handbook from Big Oil. |
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| ▲ | rsynnott 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | As above, cleaning solar panels is generally close to pointless. |
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| ▲ | csoups14 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I got solar panels installed two years ago and I've washed them once. I'm still getting great production. Are you trying to convince yourself that maintaining solar panels is difficult? Because it isn't. |
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| ▲ | DetectDefect 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I got solar panels installed two years ago > I've washed them once. > I'm still getting great production. Thank you for reiterating my point. | | |
| ▲ | csoups14 41 minutes ago | parent [-] | | So let me get this straight, I save hundreds of dollars a month, I drive my cars "for free", I get paid at the end of my net-metering year, and somehow this is a bad deal because I've wanted (not needed) to wash my panels once? It sounds like you optimize your life around not maintaining the things around you which is fine, but I'd much rather save thousands of dollars. |
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| ▲ | boringg 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| You don't bother with the snow. Winter is low production energy due to the suns positioning - it melts in the spring and your back to producing. Most solar power is between march - september anyways. |
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| ▲ | rsynnott 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Washing solar panels _at all_ would be fairly unusual, and arguably pretty pointless, particularly given they're so cheap now; you're looking at, optimistically, a 5% efficiency improvement, but many studies say more like 1% in practice. If you're in a place that gets significant snowfall such that they're often covered then production during winter is likely to be fairly marginal anyway, so may not be worth your while. |
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| ▲ | 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | lostlogin 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Why do you think that level of maintenance is needed? |
