Solar Panel Maintenance: What you need to know
It's important that once your solar panel installation is complete you receive the optimum benefit from your solar energy system. To make sure that you‘re getting the most from your solar panels, it's imperative that regular observation, and subsequent maintenance, is carried out. Here's what you need to know in order to keep solar panels for your home working at their best:
First things first, you will need to monitor the output from your solar panels in some way so that you can pick up on any potential problems as they arise. This can be done in different ways, with the most popular choices being:
a) A traditional pen and paper method to complete a form recording of the output from your solar panels once or twice a day.
b) By using a digital electricity monitor, which can be purchased quite widely and easily nowadays and will allow you to connect to a computer and download the historical data collected, store it and analyse it (we generally recommend this option as causing the least hassle for the lowest cost).
c) A more sophisticated wireless system that not only tracks your PV panels' output and performance, but can also be accessed from any internet-enabled device anywhere, and can allow your solar panels' manufacturer to monitor the performance of your solar energy system to make sure it is in line with other photovoltaic systems in the area.
You can also upload the data from your solar PV monitoring system to specialised websites, such as pvoutput.org or bdpv.fr, and compare your solar energy output with others in your area.
It's also important to bear in mind that there is a good possibility that you may need to replace the inverter within the solar PV system at sometime over the lifetime of the project. Solar panel installers and engineers do advise that these can malfunction, although it's also certainly possible that they can continue to function well for 25 years! Therefore, it might be worth thinking about taking out a 25 year warranty on the inverter at the time of your solar panel installation – such warranties should certainly be available as an optional extra from your solar panel installers, although the warranty itself will be between you and the manufacturer of the inverter.
If you have trees or other vegetation growing close to your PV panels, you will need to make sure that these are trimmed back regularly. It's also a good idea to have your solar panels cleaned from time to time.
Similarly, if your house experiences heavy prolonged snowfall, then you might want to consider clearing the snow from the PV panels to reduce the burden of the snow's weight. Of course, this may be easier said than done! This is why the PV panels are designed to be self-cleaning to a certain extent using normal precipitation, providing that the solar panel installation is completed at a suitable angle on a suitable roof pitch. This will keep them free from the worst of any dirt or dust.
If you live in a very polluted area, then you might want to consider having your solar panels cleaned using a mild detergent and water. PV panels should always been cleaned from the ridge down, which avoids spraying the water inadvertently up the roof and under the roof tiles and slates. Indeed, modern cleaning companies often use cleaning equipment from the ground, so as to avoid roof access, and this may be the best approach.
It's definitely worth making sure that you're getting the most from solar panels for your home, and with just the little amount of maintenance that it takes, you'll be ensuring that your solar panel installation works for you for years to come.
First things first, you will need to monitor the output from your solar panels in some way so that you can pick up on any potential problems as they arise. This can be done in different ways, with the most popular choices being:
a) A traditional pen and paper method to complete a form recording of the output from your solar panels once or twice a day.
b) By using a digital electricity monitor, which can be purchased quite widely and easily nowadays and will allow you to connect to a computer and download the historical data collected, store it and analyse it (we generally recommend this option as causing the least hassle for the lowest cost).
c) A more sophisticated wireless system that not only tracks your PV panels' output and performance, but can also be accessed from any internet-enabled device anywhere, and can allow your solar panels' manufacturer to monitor the performance of your solar energy system to make sure it is in line with other photovoltaic systems in the area.
You can also upload the data from your solar PV monitoring system to specialised websites, such as pvoutput.org or bdpv.fr, and compare your solar energy output with others in your area.
It's also important to bear in mind that there is a good possibility that you may need to replace the inverter within the solar PV system at sometime over the lifetime of the project. Solar panel installers and engineers do advise that these can malfunction, although it's also certainly possible that they can continue to function well for 25 years! Therefore, it might be worth thinking about taking out a 25 year warranty on the inverter at the time of your solar panel installation – such warranties should certainly be available as an optional extra from your solar panel installers, although the warranty itself will be between you and the manufacturer of the inverter.
If you have trees or other vegetation growing close to your PV panels, you will need to make sure that these are trimmed back regularly. It's also a good idea to have your solar panels cleaned from time to time.
Similarly, if your house experiences heavy prolonged snowfall, then you might want to consider clearing the snow from the PV panels to reduce the burden of the snow's weight. Of course, this may be easier said than done! This is why the PV panels are designed to be self-cleaning to a certain extent using normal precipitation, providing that the solar panel installation is completed at a suitable angle on a suitable roof pitch. This will keep them free from the worst of any dirt or dust.
If you live in a very polluted area, then you might want to consider having your solar panels cleaned using a mild detergent and water. PV panels should always been cleaned from the ridge down, which avoids spraying the water inadvertently up the roof and under the roof tiles and slates. Indeed, modern cleaning companies often use cleaning equipment from the ground, so as to avoid roof access, and this may be the best approach.
It's definitely worth making sure that you're getting the most from solar panels for your home, and with just the little amount of maintenance that it takes, you'll be ensuring that your solar panel installation works for you for years to come.