Cleaning Solar Panels

We too have the Enphase Microinverters, 6.4kW system. I wash the panels twice, or once a year using a mild dish soap solution and a very long handle ( 1'1/2"x 1'1/2" by 18' ) pole and a soft glass cleaning cover.

 

309 may seem like a lot, but that's probably about 15% low. The owners of the panels have been pretty good thus far about addressing concerns (we had a bad micro inverter that needed to be replaced at one point), so I am cautiously optimistic they will come out and clean these puppies.

 

Assuming you wanted to, you could run an ethernet port to your garage for not too much money. Of course, depending upon your layout and the time involved, it may not be worthwhile. I ran an ethernet cable to my garage to monitor my inverter from my computer. Granted, I just had to go down an insulated wall about 3 feet and I was in my garage. My inverter has a serial (RJ232, i think it is) for communication. I rigged my Cat5 cable to a serial connector on each end so that I could log/review/etc the production with a simple program I found online.

I haven't cleaned my panels in the 3 years they've been on my roof. I haven't noticed any significant production difference. Then again, we get some pretty heavy storms here during the summer, so I assume the heavy rain cleans them pretty well

 

Reboot.

With bad air quality this season from wildfires, our solar panels have been a bit dustier than usual thus far during our usual rainless summer months.

Rinsed the panels this morning up on a ladder with the hose. Temps, air quality, and cloudless skies were the same today as yesterday. On track for 6% more energy produced today after cleaning.