Maintainance Tips for Solar Panel

Solar panels are a long time investment that ensure your independence from grid electricity for the next 20-25 years or more. However, to ensure the solar system works to its full potential and lasts for a long time, you must do proper solar panel maintenance. 

We have curated this mini guide to help you understand how you should maintain your solar panels. 

Why do you need to maintain the solar system? 

Most solar systems require little maintenance as the rainwater easily washes away dust or debris. However, extreme weather conditions like dust, dry weather, storms, or heavy snowfall can affect your solar panels’ capacity. Therefore, you need to ensure timely cleaning and maintenance of your system to obtain maximum efficiency for a long time.

How often do you need to maintain the solar system?

Solar companies have started designing solar systems that require minimal maintenance, meaning that you only need to ensure your solar panel remains free of dust or damage. For that, you can follow these three simple schedules with different periods. 

1. Regular Cleaning 

One of the simplest ways to maintain optimum solar efficiency is performing regular cleaning. It is important to know how often you should clean your solar panels. The number of times and when you should clean depends on the weather conditions of your area. Usually, you can clean your solar panel two times a year. Weather conditions, however, can extend or reduce maintenance requirements. 

For example, if you live in an area with heavy rainfall or where your solar panels don’t catch too much dust or debris, you only need to clean once a year. However, if there are any areas where solar panels collect too much dust and debris or don’t receive good rainfall, you need to clean around four times a year. 

2. Annual Inspection 

Even after cleaning, the panels may start losing their full potential. Hiring professionals to inspect your solar panels and ensure they are offering maximum efficiency is vital, especially if you have roof-mounted solar panels as accessing them can be difficult. 

3. Extra Maintenance

Sometimes solar panels may face some issues even after the annual inspection. In such cases, you can book a maintenance appointment with the professionals. 

How to identify when your solar system needs maintenance? 

Most solar panels can work effectively with regular cleaning. However, when your solar system starts producing less energy, it is a big sign that it needs maintenance. It can happen due to a block from dust or debris.

To identify the problem in efficiency, you can install monitoring systems. It will help you measure the solar energy produced by the panels on a particular day and assess how it changes over time. From this point, you can monitor what factors affect the maximum efficiency or whether their capacity reduces over the years. 

Moreover, the monitoring system also indicates whenever there is breakage or damage in the panels. This way, you can call the professionals for additional maintenance, such as repairing or replacement when needed.

How to clean solar panels? 

As we discussed earlier, you only have to follow the three schedules of cleaning, annual inspection, and extra maintenance to avoid any damage to the solar system. While following the three solar maintenance schedules, use these tips to maintain their maximum efficiency.

1. Maintain a cleaning schedule 

Solar panels are easy to maintain, and you only need to clean them occasionally.regularly. But maintaining a cleaning schedule will help you always keep the panels free of dust or debris.

2. Don’t shovel off snow without training 

Sometimes heavy snowfall can cover the solar panels affecting their efficiency. Since solar panels point towards the sun’s direction, the snow will eventually melt away. However, a lot of snow is covering your solar panels, and if you want to remove it manually, you should use the proper equipment and method. Use only hose water at a lukewarm temperature; never use hot water, as it can damage the panels because of the temperature disparity. You can call our solar panel experts for professional advice and help.

3. Regularly check your solar panel 

Dust, debris, snow, or tree leaves can hinder your solar system performance, but you can prevent such situations by regularly checking your solar panels for any sunlight obstructions or damage. 

4. Remove any unwanted dirt or dust 

If you live in a dry area, there is a greater chance your solar panels will get covered with dust or debris more often. Even if rain is a good cleaning source for solar panels, you can’t rely on this alone. 

Direct the hose water towards the solar panels, rinsing off dust or debris. The natural sloping of roofs and tilted solar panel angle act as a plus point, so you won’t have to climb up, and you can do the cleaning from the ground itself.

Conclusion 

How well you maintain your solar panels will affect how long solar panels can last in your home, so never get lazy about maintaining your solar panels. Nowadays, most solar panels come with minimal maintenance. You only need to perform clean solar panels from time to timeregular cleaning and follow the schedules and tips we mentioned in this solar maintenance guide. 

Call our solar panel installers if you have any more doubts about solar panel maintenance or need professional support.