If you’ve recently become the proud owner of a solar panel system for your home or business, then you’ll soon be enjoying a reduction in your energy bills, and your carbon footprint; great news for both you and the environment.
However, with such an investment comes a responsibility to take care of the panels and ensure that they keep performing at their best, for many years to come. Fortunately, maintaining solar panels is usually straightforward, and doesn’t require a great deal of time or effort.
Here are 3 simple ways to keep your solar panels performing at their best, well into the future:
While a lot will depend upon the environment in which your solar panels are installed, all solar panels will need cleaning at some stage. If you live in a dusty area, have had birds roosting close to the panels, or overhanging trees drop their leaves and pollen at certain times of the year, you may need to clean your solar panels every other month or so. Naturally, if you notice that they’re exceptionally dirty at any point, you should clean them (or have your solar installer do it for you), and you can typically get the job done with a sponge or rag and some dish soap. Just take care not to scratch their surface with abrasive cleaning tools and materials.
The more often you clean your panels, the easier it will be each time, but for mores stubborn dirt and stains, you may need a professional panel cleaning company to do it for you. In many instances, this is the safer option anyway, especially if the panels are on the roof of a building.
2. Prevent your panels from being shaded
Solar panels need the sun to function, we all know that, but even a little bit of shade can have a negative impact on their functionality. In fact, if only a ¼ of a panel becomes shaded, this can half the systems output. When solar systems are installed, the company doing so will assess your building’s compatibility with a solar system, and if there is shade present that they can do nothing about (such as from a neighboring building or trees that are protected), they won’t install the system. But, it is possible, of course, for trees to grow, and you may find that over the course of time, you need to trim back any tree branches that might have started to affect your solar system’s output since it was first installed.
3. Keep a log of the daily performance of panels
While this does require a certain degree of motivation and dedication, it can help to ensure that your system is still performing at its best, and this can end up making you significant savings on your utilities. If you can’t monitor it yourself, you can now buy electronic systems that will do it for you.
Each day, make a note of your system’s production at approximately the same time, and on cloudy, sunless days, take special care to note this down as you record the results. Should you start to see significant fluctuations in the data, it could be that your system needs to be assessed by a solar professional.
Taking care of your solar panels is simple, and absolutely worth the effort to protect your investment and enable you to keep making significant energy savings.
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