Do you wash your panels? If so, how?

[charlesj]

right. i’ve only done this twice in 5.5 years and the only reason i did it most recently was that the 2020 wildfire season dumped a ton of ash on my panels. outside of that probably every 2-3 years would be enough for my system.

A ton? And panels survived?

 

[astrorob]

a s***-ton to be precise.

 

[Dave EV]

I think you mean an ash-ton, LOL!

 

[sorka]

I did? Oh, I thought you were making a joke about how much money you were saving by cleaning your panels every 2 weeks.

No. The point I was making is that unless your paid wash is going to last you at least 6 months before you have to do it again, the cost to have them washed every 2 weeks will far exceed the energy value you can produce by saving an average of 2.5% between washes (simplifying it as linear loss of power which is not quite right but close enough).

I'm still not sure it's worth my time to spend 40 minutes a month doing it myself but the panels are new and shiny still since I only just got them installed in October.

I'm sure I'll get lazy and just deal with a constant 5% loss of production..

Although I may just resort to washing them in the spring and summer when I'm making the highest average kwh per panel.