[adrianN]

Panels have warranties of over twenty years now. They pay for themselves much earlier. You probably have to replace the inverter earlier, but that’s not a huge expense. I don’t know anybody who lives in a place where it rains who cleans the panels on their roof.

[DetectDefect]

Oh, okay. Does a warranty cover sweeping snow off your panels and washing them many times throughout the years? I guess if one does not value time, then solar panels could be considered "free" - but this is a bizarre sacrifice.

[darkwater]

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.

[eitally]

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]

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.

[zejn]

Just spraying dust with water will not remove it. Detergent helps, but most of the cleaning effect is done by mechanical agitation, eg. wiping the glass.

[darkwater]

Here it's not so dusty, but in spring there can be a ton of flying pollen and yet, our not so abundant rains (generally speaking, there are more and more stormy episodes lately once a year) are enough to clean it up.

[lostlogin]

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.

[DetectDefect]

> 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]

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]

> 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%.

[lostlogin]

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]

> Where are you getting this maintenance schedule of yours from?

Their "Anti-Solar Talking Points" handbook from Big Oil.

[rsynnott]

As above, cleaning solar panels is generally close to pointless.

[csoups14]

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.

[DetectDefect]

> 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]

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.

[boringg]

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.

[rsynnott]

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.

[lostlogin]

Why do you think that level of maintenance is needed?