San Diego, CA - (NewMediaWire) - July 19, 2022 - Soilar Technologies, a next generation PV soiling mitigation technology company introduces the Ultimate Guide to Solar Panel Cleaning Equipment.
In the next 8 years, the USA will be installing 1.1 billion solar panels for just the commercial, industrial, and utility-scale segments. However, if these solar panels are dirty, they do not produce energy. Soiling on solar panels reduces performance, reliability, and asset life. As part of the customer awareness campaign, Soilar Technologies has introduced the following guide to help the industry face each solar panel cleaning challenge with a better understanding of the industry's existing tools.
Commercial Solar Panel Cleaning Equipment
Commercial installations vary in size and form. The guide below is a tool to help you choose the best commercial solar panel cleaning equipment.
Solar Farms vary significantly in size and form. The guide below is a tool to help you choose the best utility-scale solar panel cleaning equipment.
Source: https://www.soilar.tech/
The Department of Energy has set clear energy targets. By 2050, 50% of US energy will be solar.
If the United States adopted solar as the primary energy source, solar panel cleaners would have at least 21,250 square miles to clean per year. Now imagine if those panels are cleaned 2 times a year...that takes us to 42,500 square miles per year.
The 12 Standard Stages in Solar Panel Cleaning
Understanding the 12 standard stages in solar panel cleaning will also help you understand how to choose the right solar panel cleaning equipment to face your solar panel cleaning challenges.
Before we get started, how can we ensure operator and bystander safety? Let's be "safety centric"
Before we get started, how can we ensure that we will not damage the PV site? Thermal shock ..etc
How do we move the equipment from the company warehouse or Homebase to the job site and vice versa?
Once we arrive at the job site with our equipment, how do we get set up? What resources do we need to get to work? How does the machinery we have performed in this stage?
How do we treat our water? Do we do this at the job site or do we do it at a company warehouse and then transport the treated water?
How do we get the water from the source to the machinery and solar panels? How do we handle the long hoses and what tools can we use to make this handling easier and more efficient? Do we need to refill the source?
Once we get the equipment set up and the machinery is on the array, how well do we perform the cleaning? How many trips to clean the array? Water consumption per trip?
It is common that solar installations to have gaps within the array or row. How does the solar panel cleaning equipment cross that gap and will it be a problem? Gaps can be problematic and there are workarounds.
9. Row to Row (Moving from one array to another)
How do we move the machinery from one row to the next? Rows/arrays are constant in every solar panel cleaning job and each installation requires that you solve the problem in a tailored way.
How is our equipment powered and how can we ensure constant and efficient power so we do not have to stop working?
(Basically the same as Arrival / Setup) but not always the same.
Time to go home or to the next job site!
What Value does solar panel cleaning bring?
Improves performance and revenue. More power output means more revenue in most cases
Improves reliability. If you have a good solar panel cleaning system in place then you will be able to provide a reliable energy output.
Improves asset life. Solar panel cleaning reduces the appearance of hotspots.
Warranty is valid if you clean - Most solar panel manufacturer warranties are only valid if you clean regularly.
Do not use pressure washers to clean solar panels
Pressure washing has been proven to
Destroying the ARC (Anti Reflective Coating
Creating micro cracks (don't walk on them!)
The Quest To Find the Most Productive Machine
Most O&M directors or solar panel cleaners begin their quest for finding the ideal machinery by looking for the most productive machine in the marketplace. This is a very valid beginning however solar panel cleaning has many complexities and setup time and distance between installations is one of the biggest challenges when trying to do the job. It is important to find the most productive machine but experience has shown that logistical efficiency is just as important if not more important.
Asking the manufacturer of the machinery "How many panels per day can the machine do"? Productivity is ideally measured by square footage or similar. This is a direct relationship between brush width, array width, cleaning speed, and brush abrasion levels.
Assuming the answer the manufacturer gives you is truthful.
Assuming you can be performing impeccably 24 x 7. In the case of C&I installations, The distance between sites often conditions your crew to clean one site per day.
Assuming water filtration is done flawlessly and without delays. Deionizing water is a significant challenge in solar panel cleaning.
Assuming your crew is 100% productive.
Understanding that weather may impact your productivity more than machine productivity. If it is raining, you cannot clean.
Assuming that the logistical part of the business is easy
Assuming that machinery productivity impacts the project more than logistical efficiency. Experience has shown that logistics are a dominating factor in the success of a project.
o Distance to project sites is a bigger factor than machine productivity
o Setup and Logistics are a bigger factor in many situations (not all) than machine productivity
Carla Dawson founded Soilar Technologies, a NextGen PV Soiling Mitigation Technology Company in 2019. NextGen PV Soiling mitigation is a data-enriched smart system that combines new technologies that mitigate photovoltaic soiling such as solar panel cleaning robotics, PV anti-soiling coatings, PV abrasion testing, bird deterrent solutions, PV soil monitoring, electrodynamic shields (EDS), condensation prevention, tracker/stowage position, and cleaning schedule optimization, solar panel cleaning software, analytics and more.
Adopting Nextgen PV soiling mitigation technologies allows solar asset owners to improve their performance, revenue, predictability, reliability, and asset life.
Name: Carla Dawson website: www.soilar.tech
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