Solar Panel Cleaning

[Stig]

Having had a local window cleaning firm try to clean my panels last year and fail (they couldn't shift the lichen so gave me my money back) I thought I'd try getting a quote from a specialist company. Brace yourselves...




£525+VAT


That apparently involves a scaffold tower but if I'm paying that sort of money I might as well get them replaced with more efficient ones!

Anyone had their panels professionally cleaned?

This is what mine look like after 13 years:

[dan_b]

That's quite a steep price for sure

[MrPablo]

What power panels are they, and how much has output dropped?
I agree, for that sort of money I'd just be tempted to replace with higher output panels.
You could try and clean the panels once off the roof, then use elsewhere or sell if needed.

[AGT]

Spray with wet and forget or similar such as patio magic

[Moxi]

access via a hired in mini cherry picker can be quite cheap - a lot less than the quoted cost

Moxi

[NoraBatty]

Id ask for a breakdown.
If they are hiring the scaffold then it makes sense to be that high. Not that i think its a good price.
You want to check and see if they have their own scaffold tower and are cheekily charging you proper scaffold rates.

[Stinsy]

You can hire a scaffold tower pretty cheaply. Should be pretty simple to jetwash them from there yourself!

[Stig]

As their business is cleaning solar panels, commercial and domestic, I'd be very surprised if they didn't have their own scaffolding! I'll have a look at how much hiring a cherry picker or scissor lift for a day would cost, I'm not that keen on heights though...

It's a 2kWp system and has dropped from around 2000kWhr to around 1700kWhr a year although some of that (maybe half) is due to increased winter shading I can do nothing about (not my tree).

[resybaby]

hd to hire a self assembly scaff tower the other month. £100/day with delivery

[Stig]

So, I've been mulling this over and looking at the prices of new panels it looks like around £500 would give me an upgrade from the current 2.05kWp to around 3.5kWp. Of course my FIT income would only go up by the 'lost' generation of the current system, maybe £120 a year. I might benefit a bit more if modern split panels mitigate the winter shading losses, not sure how much that would help though.

Anyone paid to have a system fitted recently? I'm assuming the existing rails could be reused.

I'm on 50% deemed export at the moment (I actually export 45%), what's the going rate for export payments?
(I don't have an EV to use the energy or to qualify for the fancy tariffs). That might determine whether it's worth upgrading the 2kW inverter as well. Given my low electricity usage I can't see a battery system being economic and my guess is that daytime export rates will fall as more solar is installed but that's crystal ball gazing...


I would also have the opportunity to stop the stupid pigeons trying to nest under the panels -I've seen three eggs that have rolled off the roof so far this spring!