I am looking for a professional service to clean my Tesla solar roof. Does anyone have a recommendation for the SF Bay Area, preferably the North Bay?
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solar roof cleaning
- Thread starter XLR8OR
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I work with Nathan Porter, and I do recommend him. He is based in the south bay, so work out with him whether you are close enough to make sense.
Porter Solar Solutions | Solar Panel Cleaning
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Another consideration if you have to pay someone to do it, is how much does it cost and what increase in production would it take to pay off the cost for cleaning based on your usual electricity costs.
For example (keeping these numbers simple and hoping that I don’t mess up the math) if you get 25 cents per KWH grid export on average, and it costs $150 to get them cleaned, then you’d need to increase your production with the cleaning by (150/0.25)= 600kwh just to break even, per cleaning.
I clean my panels on my own 2-3 times per year and generally see only about a 2-3% increase after cleaning and that effect wanes with the time since the cleaning. (Which is hard to quantify given differences in season and daily weather patterns, but easiest if you can clean them after a full production sunny day where the next day will also be cloudless full production, you can at least estimate a maximum cleaning effect).
My 4.3kw array produced 6700 kWh in 2020 and 6500 kWh in 2021. If we assumed that there was a 3% increase in production after cleaning my panels that persists through the whole year (which we know there isn’t because the effect wanes over time and you would probably need to clean multiple times to maintain the same effect, at least in rain-starved Southern California), I’d make ~200kwh more with the cleaning, and my break even cost to spend on cleaning is $50 once per year (200kwh*$0.25/kWh, if average electricity cost was $0.25/kWh). Anything more and I’m actually delaying my payback period.
Has anyone had similar experience/math?
For example (keeping these numbers simple and hoping that I don’t mess up the math) if you get 25 cents per KWH grid export on average, and it costs $150 to get them cleaned, then you’d need to increase your production with the cleaning by (150/0.25)= 600kwh just to break even, per cleaning.
I clean my panels on my own 2-3 times per year and generally see only about a 2-3% increase after cleaning and that effect wanes with the time since the cleaning. (Which is hard to quantify given differences in season and daily weather patterns, but easiest if you can clean them after a full production sunny day where the next day will also be cloudless full production, you can at least estimate a maximum cleaning effect).
My 4.3kw array produced 6700 kWh in 2020 and 6500 kWh in 2021. If we assumed that there was a 3% increase in production after cleaning my panels that persists through the whole year (which we know there isn’t because the effect wanes over time and you would probably need to clean multiple times to maintain the same effect, at least in rain-starved Southern California), I’d make ~200kwh more with the cleaning, and my break even cost to spend on cleaning is $50 once per year (200kwh*$0.25/kWh, if average electricity cost was $0.25/kWh). Anything more and I’m actually delaying my payback period.
Has anyone had similar experience/math?
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I don't pay anyone to clean mine, but I did see a 12% increase after cleaning, but that was after the big fires
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Silicon Desert
Well-Known Member
For appearance or better solar production? I hadn't heard of people cleaning their roof tiles. I wonder how similar it might be to traditional solar panels. I've never seen more than a 4% or 5% better production whenever I cleaned my traditional solar panels in the past. The extra money I made from the solar production was easily eaten up by the cost of cleaning, so I stopped doing it. I'm curious if it makes any difference with the roof panels you have.
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Agreed, sounds like ymmv on the actual increase depending on multiple factors (how long since last clean, fires/ash/dust in the area…)
I will also note that doing the math for me also convinced me it wasn’t worth spending $75-100 on a special extension thing for my microfiber mop, and I’ve settled on spray from the hose and a much cheaper extension handle.
I will also note that doing the math for me also convinced me it wasn’t worth spending $75-100 on a special extension thing for my microfiber mop, and I’ve settled on spray from the hose and a much cheaper extension handle.
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Please keep us updated on your selection. We just googled solar panel cleaning and came up with several people. We had one come out and they only did an OK job. They refused to get on the roof so only cleaned what they could reach from the edges which was much of the active tiles. And while it looked better, it had little impact on production, probably 3-4% max. So like G, I am not sure about doing it again.
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Have 15 years of meticulous records on my system. Live in an area with a lot of agricultural dust (vineyards) and the panels are visibly dirty pretty quickly after cleaning. I generally see about a 5% improvement in output (measured either as peak kW or total kWh's on day before and day after cleaning). It degrades enough over a couple of months that my basic schedule is three times per year (if we have actual rain during the winter - the rain counts as the fourth cleaning). We had a pretty impressive ash fall a couple years ago from some catastrophic local fires and the reduction/recovery was 25% !!
There are a cluster of half a dozen neighbors who all have solar - we make it a block party and do all of them ourselves. Since all of the homes are single story - a ladder, 24 foot extension pole with soft bristle broom along with a decent hose and nozzle can get all of them done in about 4 hours.
There are a cluster of half a dozen neighbors who all have solar - we make it a block party and do all of them ourselves. Since all of the homes are single story - a ladder, 24 foot extension pole with soft bristle broom along with a decent hose and nozzle can get all of them done in about 4 hours.
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