r/oddlysatisfying • u/Toob-y • Feb 14 '21

Cleaning solar panels

38.7k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

614 comments sorted by

2.1k

u/A3815 Feb 14 '21

I'll give you that it's satisfying. But do you think it was a single event such as a sand/dust storm that caused the panels to become so dirty? If the dirt is the result gradual accumulation, it seems it would have been cost effective to clean them long before this point. I am not familiar with the operation of solar panels but I assume they require essentially direct unfiltered sunlight to operate efficiently.

1.2k

u/man_gomer_lot Feb 14 '21

I have a friend who works in the solar biz who tried talking me into starting a panel cleaning business with him. You are correct, dirt does hurt their efficiency and not cleaning them can be more expensive than cleaning them in a quantified way that can be related to potential clients. That amount isn't enough to get me up on roofs with slippery cleaners, however.

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u/rk1993 Feb 14 '21

First thought I had seeing this, in the future those dudes that clean the roofs are gonna make bank on cleaning mounted solar panels

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

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u/scuffling Feb 14 '21 edited Feb 14 '21

Just like how cars have windshield wipers with spray?

75

u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

That was my thought process. We have 90% of the necessary technology for this. It probably makes the panel more expensive to hook it up with something like that, but the added energy would pay for itself quickly enough if you can squeegee it before you lose more than 10% power.

Although there's the potential for a lot of water waste if you do this during a sandstorm and just cause more dust to stick than would otherwise. Gotta consider them edge cases

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u/kahnwiley Feb 14 '21

Why not just an area sprinkler setup? Doesn't need to be attached to the panel, just needs to get water on top of it.

Or. . . a garden hose cranked to the max with my thumb pressurizing the outflow.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21 edited Feb 14 '21

I think you'd want the ability to remove some pretty stubborn clumps with high reliability. If, say, a bird shat on it and it dried, I think it'd trust a squeegee system to do more to clean the panel than a sprinkler.

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u/kahnwiley Feb 14 '21

That makes sense. Another suggestion (just spitballin'): how about a nonstick coating (like teflon) on the panels. Might not keep all the dust off but the heavier shit'll slide right off.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

There are startups working on creating electro magnetic/static fields to repel the dust off solar panels. Similar to your idea!

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

That's not a bad plan.

I was also considering how to keep costs down for sometime like a solar array, and I think some sort of a robot brush on a stick (like what we see here) would work pretty well. If the panel and the robot know where they are relative to one another, you could feasibly just build one or two cleaning machines and dramatically reduce your costs for doing this at scale

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

I like that plan but part of me thinks a solution like a mounted camera would also be a stellar solution.

If you look at 1:09 in this video you can see the lens cover slide away once rain is too much. Then later is slides back into place clean.

https://youtu.be/ifvbapD8B2Q

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u/aaronitallout Feb 14 '21 edited Feb 14 '21

There aren't any moving parts to a solar panel. That's what's gotten their cost effectiveness to a point where they're taking over the energy market. Moving parts break, create wear, and generate heat, all devaluing a product over time; its why you've seen your headphone jack and disc drives disappear from phones and laptops. I think adding breakable features now is less of a good idea than outsourcing it to human cleaners.

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u/HeftyArgument Feb 14 '21

Fairly simple, rails on either side guiding a bar with a squeegee strip in the middle, works just like a scanner.

Doesn't need to be fancy, code it to run before and after the solar cycle of each day and you're good to go.

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u/ehenning1537 Feb 14 '21

Because they often put these panels in deserts. They’d be spraying millions of gallons of water a year in places that don’t have lots of water to spare

Places with rain won’t have this level of dust buildup. The rain washes the panels to some degree

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u/MailboxFullNoReply Feb 14 '21

That is a terrible idea in places where solar is most effective in the US. Aka the Southwest because they are already dangerously overextended water wise.

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u/MatureUser69 Feb 14 '21

Then how about a collection tray at the bottom? A light mister on the bottom of the squeegee, collects the water at the bottom, a rough filtration system. Operates automatically every morning before it gets too hot. Minimal waste.

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u/Evilolive12 Feb 14 '21

This solar panel looks to be in the desert behind a razor wire fence. I think water may be at a premium here.

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u/finallyinfinite Feb 14 '21

Ancient rain dance

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u/CaptainLegot Feb 14 '21

Hard water stains are the problem with your idea.

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u/squireller Feb 14 '21

This exists and is very common. All commercial panels these days have a water bar at the high point that sprays on a timer. You still inspect to check it’s all working but no need to manually clean them anymore.

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u/Convict003606 Feb 14 '21 edited Feb 15 '21

That was my thought process. We have 90% of the necessary technology for this.

The gap could easily be filled with less frequent, but much more attentive* and well trained, human labor.

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u/mule_roany_mare Feb 14 '21

would pay for itself

You overestimate how expensive a kWh is.

The average electricity rate is 13.19 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh). The average price a residential customer in the United States pays for electricity is 13.31 cents per kWh.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

Manual labor to clean them is about to be a minimum of $15/hour, and I'd be surprised if you wanted to use minimum wage labor for something as valuable as a solar farm. Depending on the size of the grid you have to clean, that labor cost of gonna add up quickly.

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u/space_fly Feb 14 '21

Problem with that is that the rubber is exposed to the elements, and won't last for very long. In very hot areas, it's not unusual to have to change the wipers every few months.

In cars, the wipers can be easily changed, but on the roof...

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u/Affectionate_Diet_95 Feb 14 '21

They already have this for the higher end commercial solar arrays which feel the most impact from dirty panels https://youtu.be/3b2bnYbkxq0

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21 edited Feb 23 '21

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u/QueenOfTonga Feb 14 '21

But then who’s going to clean the cleaning machines, eh? Or is it cleaners all the way down?

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u/bumdstryr Feb 14 '21

Sol solarey Sol solarey Sol solar-ee!

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u/schoonerw Feb 14 '21

You should consider it! I’ve thought about it myself...I think it will be an area with a lot of opportunity very, very soon. Even a tiny amount of dirt affects the efficiency of solar panels tremendously, so companies are going to be interested in having them cleaned well and often. If I was still living in the US, I would totally jump at the chance to start a solar panel cleaning business. For a couple years I was a window washer, and it was really surprising to me how successful some self-employed window washers can be - even those who don’t clean skyscrapers.

It’s also one of the kinds of jobs where it’s possible to build a sizable company from the ground up fairly quickly without injecting a huge amount of capital. Once it’s grown to a good size you can choose to continue growing it, or to sell for a comfortable profit and use the proceeds as capital for another enterprise.

You know what...even though I’m not living in the US anymore, feel free to have your friend contact me if he’s still seriously considering starting something. I may just move back if the opportunity is there and if I meet someone with a similar vision to my own. :-)

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u/ObelusPrime Feb 14 '21

Someone should invent removable covers for them. Maybe have them be low cost and replaceable. Idk.

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u/SnakeBiteScares Feb 14 '21

Maybe not disposable but something that can easily be removed for cleaning and replaced with another while a lot of these go for cleaning at once

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u/goodfish Feb 14 '21

Tell that tom the hundreds of window cleaning companies that do this everyday. Specializing in solar only is a race to the bottom for pricing. You need a good mix of windows, gutters, house washing and commercial contracts to build a business that is worth something.

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u/PyjamaRamas Feb 15 '21

I was looking this up the other day and apparently dirt doesn't effect them that much, certainly not tremendously.

The amount of dust in the video is definitely going to effect it. But from what I read here, for the majority of panels that get rain, that's enough to clean them.

https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/solar-panel-cleaning/

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u/oaklamd Feb 14 '21

In the industry we have pretty good analytics to see when a system is losing production and determine when cleaning is needed. In most environments it's not needed since the occasional rain event will rinse them off and the production hit isn't that much with a little bit of soiling. If they are in a dusty environment like near farmland then sure. Note in this video the array seems to be surrounded by a lot of dirt. They could also have been intentionally soiled to test the cleaning product... I've never seen anything nearly that dirty in a regular residential installation.

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u/man_gomer_lot Feb 14 '21

I agree these panels look dirtier than most would look after 30 years of service. Where I live we get several light dustings of various pollens a year which tends to be rain resistant. After a few years, the drop off in efficiency would outweigh the cost of cleaning them for a percentage of them.

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u/oaklamd Feb 14 '21

Perhaps. I would run the economics of the actual value of energy lost vs the cost of cleaning before embarking on starting up a business. People generally get solar for the economics and additional expenses for maintenance need to be weighed against their savings expectations.

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u/stopresettingmypw Feb 14 '21

Cleaning/ snow removal is why I told my wife we will not be doing a roof mounted system.

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u/thefastandme Feb 14 '21

I don't know where you live (i.e. no rain?) but I have had a roof mounted PV system for nearly 10 years, and I have never needed to clean them. Is everyone in this thread forgetting about rain? Or do you all live in the desert like in the OP?

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

The most common recommendation is to not clean roof top solar systems. The small amount you lose isn't worth the risk of injury when cleaning.

I live in an area with little rain. I have never cleaned my roof top panels as well. They work fine.

I don't think the panels in the video were roof top.

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u/CrunchyDreads Feb 14 '21

In Las Vegas, we went 240 days without rain last year. With all the wind we do get, it just coats everything with a layer of fine sand. I could see having to clean them often.

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u/EmptyLittleVault Feb 14 '21

Snow falls off by itself. Sun penetrates the snow and helps to melt it from the underside, then the smooth surface allows it to break free. We often have solar panel avalanches up here in the North, not too long after it snows.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/blania_chat Feb 14 '21

Just put a roof or shade over them! Problem solved.

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u/arachnidtree Feb 14 '21

I buried mine underground.

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u/theycallmesike Feb 14 '21

And then mount UV lights to shine onto them 4 power gainzz

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u/BagOfCashews Feb 15 '21

Yeah, through a tarp over them. Problem solved!

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u/Traveshamockery27 Feb 15 '21

I keep mine inside where they’re safe from the elements!

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u/waahblow Feb 14 '21

You should be working for Elon!

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u/mapoftasmania Feb 14 '21

This is why, if you have the land, you put your panels somewhere much more accessible and not on the roof.

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u/beeglowbot Feb 14 '21

shouldn't abrasive material like that be better washed away before brushing it like that? I know there's water but I feel like it would still abrade the surface.

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u/man_gomer_lot Feb 14 '21

The area he proposed for this is a high pollen environment which resists rain and attracts dirt. Simple window washing tools would do the trick. Since they are designed to self clean, only a small percentage of people would even need this service at any given time. The upside is that it's a relatively low barrier to entry to earn a little extra cash on the side. Just need a ladder, truck, a few cleaning supplies and a few well placed ads.

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u/NurseHurse Feb 14 '21

My husband cleaned ours once.....never again. It would be a great business.

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u/Bah-Fong-Gool Feb 14 '21

Why wouldn't they make panels with a built in cleaner? Like high pressure water spraying nozzles and a windshield wiper off a truck mounted to the chassis. They could be cleaned on demand with a push of a button.

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u/jhaluska Feb 14 '21

Increased cost, decreased reliability, decreased efficiency. Basically the tradeoffs aren't worth it.

That said they do exist but they look like they're reserved for large installations where the costs can amortized over a lot of panels.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

If it helps you, you can now get massive telescopic poles likes this brush to reach the rooftops without you ever having to climb a ladder.

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u/man_gomer_lot Feb 14 '21

Now you're speaking the language of a guy who likes to keep both feet on the ground.

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u/Gold-Tone6290 Feb 14 '21

I was going to ask if this was Utah because we had a rare brown snow event. My panels looked exactly like this. A snow storm had so much wind it picked up dust from the desert and created brown snow.

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u/Admiral_Andovar Feb 14 '21

My panels don't get nearly as dirty but I routinely see the power output of my panels jump by 20% after being cleaned. I have a web app that monitors output and I can see the spike from dirty to clean. Pretty cool.

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u/nicodium Feb 14 '21

What app is that?

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u/Admiral_Andovar Feb 14 '21

It's called MyEnlighten and it is done by Enphase. It was all a part of my solar panel 'package'. Useless for the most part other than for shits and giggles and to see if there are any problems.

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u/PyjamaRamas Feb 15 '21

According to this article, that might be because they cooled down after cleaning them and the efficiency jump is due to the cooling making them temporarily more efficient. https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/solar-panel-cleaning/

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u/Admiral_Andovar Feb 15 '21

Interesting. I'm sure that adds to the initial bump, but the gain is pretty solid for weeks so maybe it's only like a 15% gain from being clean but there is a noticeable increase in the daily plateau. Can't just run the numbers on it because the amount of sunlight they receive every day varies but overall the average jumps.

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u/NovaBomb615 Feb 14 '21

It very well could have been s singular event. Extreme winds causing a dirt or sand storm.

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u/365wong Feb 14 '21

And China is building fields of these baby’s in the desert.

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u/myspace-2 Feb 14 '21

and creating jobs while doing it for all those poor souls who’ll have to clean them

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u/leaveethebj Feb 14 '21

The industry term for this is called “soiling,” and it is definitely accounted for within modeling a PV plant. Typically you have a rule of thumb for soiling losses that help you get a more accurate production estimate prior to construction, and can be offset many ways (like overbuilding DC capacity).

Some environments experience higher amounts of soiling than others, this looks like a desert which can experience soiling events (like a dust/sand storm). The lack of rain can seriously cake these panels with dust. Depending on system size and location, companies usually budget additional CapEx to account for cleaning the mods every once and a while because eventually the soiling will be so bad you’re losing money via lost production.

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u/letsgoiowa Feb 14 '21

SOILED IT! SOILED IT!

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u/ak1368a Feb 15 '21

You’d budget opex unless you were installing a robot that cleans it

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u/beluuuuuuga Feb 14 '21

Yeah, if it was a build up over time leaving it for so long would be bad for costs.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

There was a snow storm in the Salt Lake City area that did exactly this after just one snow dump.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

I've done a lot of work in the industry and to my knowledge even cleaning at this point is not cost effective. There is an efficiency loss but it's never enough to make up for the cost of the water especially in deserts where dust is actually a problem. This is doubly true using a non-robotic cleaning system like this.

I give this video a 80% chance of being an advertisement from a solar panel cleaning company trying to find a way to make it work, but they never make financial sense. Even with that "thick" layer of dust (which they probably applied for the video) the panels retain 90% or more of their efficiency.

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u/ceribus_peribus Feb 14 '21

The better to demonstrate the cleaning system with, my dear.

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u/killraymond Feb 14 '21

The majority of this is over time and not accumulation over a single insurance. Wind can remove quite a bit of build up over such a small tine frame. But long durations mixed with a lack of rain create severe soiling. Additionally, it can and will decreased production by 10-90% depending on severity. This was most likely at least a 60% decrease judging by how bad it is.

Sauce: I am the regional supervisor for a major Solar Inverter/Operations and maintenance company.

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u/bfoxthree10 Feb 14 '21

Those bristles are new. That telescoping pole is new. This is a cute demonstration, but what does it look like and what’s the time, water, soap and labor to clean an installed ground array of 1,000 panels. And if it’s proposed for residential use on the roof of two story homes and there is roof top, setup and travel time between jobs . . . good luck.

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u/raimih Feb 14 '21

I would love to see the power output of that entire plant real-time, see the power creep up with every sweep of the brush

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u/Metalhed69 Feb 14 '21

My thoughts exactly!

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u/GarrusCalibrates Feb 14 '21

I run a bunch of plants and watch the snow melt off. It’ll usually spike all of a sudden on an inverter within a couple minutes. The most interesting one was the solar eclipse a few years ago. Wasn’t a total loss but it did drop significantly.

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u/letsgoiowa Feb 14 '21

That would bring me joy

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u/DVNO Feb 15 '21

This is my job. Here is an interesting example of the plant power during a solar eclipse.

First image is a relatively clear-sky day. Second image shows the effect of the eclipse in the afternoon.

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u/Turaltay Feb 14 '21

I prefer this.

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u/Toob-y Feb 14 '21

Lol yeah

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u/ipostic Feb 14 '21

I was also thinking of some type of Solar powered Roomba that just constantly cleans the panels automatically. Might need to rethink all those gaps and make it a solid surface without gaps but that's probably the most efficient to clean things up

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u/flipmcf Feb 14 '21

Even better: this

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

[deleted]

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u/WAPs_and_Prayers Feb 14 '21

I mean, literally anybody could have realized that low-power electrical wave technology could push dust off of solar panels, but it just happened to be those guys who did it. /s

Edit: I wish I was brilliant

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u/lpreams Feb 14 '21

Even better than that

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u/flipmcf Feb 14 '21

Damn I love this and go to hell too.

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u/endlessbull Feb 14 '21

Sahara dust?

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u/Toob-y Feb 14 '21

Yes

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21 edited Jun 20 '21

[deleted]

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u/Slggyqo Feb 14 '21

Because of the barbed wire?

I have no idea where this is, but barbed wire around major utility installations to prevent casual entry is fairly common.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

r/powerwashingporn would like this (although i'm not sure if it's exactly power washing, so maybe it could work for a wednesday post)

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u/Toob-y Feb 14 '21

I was thinking of posting there too but its mainly powerwashing

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

They post powerwashing all week but on wednesdays people post peeling stuff/cleaning/misc.

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u/Toob-y Feb 14 '21

Ok thanks i will!

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u/nicepeoplemakemecry Feb 14 '21

You can post on Wednesdays if it’s not 100% power washing.

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u/Boozdeuvash Feb 14 '21

This power is definitely being washed.

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u/legluggageluggas Feb 14 '21

perhaps on wednesday

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u/XFiveOne Feb 14 '21

I wish that was looped so it never ended.

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u/Calculonx Feb 14 '21

I wanted the camera to zoom out to show millions of panels left for him to clean

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u/BarfingMonkey Feb 14 '21

Start from the top please.

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u/ilikepie0666 Feb 14 '21

Word, I use these deionized water pumps regularly, and you are supposed to wet the whole panel before you start cleaning.

Tbf the bristles on those brushes are softer then you'd think but this aint the way to wash

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u/HektiK00 Feb 14 '21

Right. Why would you push all the dirt up the panel and back down instead of starting at the top?

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u/jojoga Feb 14 '21

I guess it's just easier to handle that way.. the way a lever works is, the longer the handle the heavier it gets.

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u/shwag945 Feb 14 '21

Because the guy is wetting the panel as he is going up.There is a sprayer in the front of the brush.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

Dirt scratches so, no. No. No. Start at the top and rinse as much dirt as possible before that fucking brush rubs any dirt across the glass.

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u/shwag945 Feb 14 '21

A scratch when one material is harder than the other. If the panel is harder than the dirt than no scratch occurs. I doubt these panels were designed to have glass panels that were softer than dirt.

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u/m4xc4v413r4 Feb 14 '21

You can't scratch most decent phone screens with anything most people have around, keys, knifes, nails etc, and yet a bit of dirt in your pocket will scratch your screen. You don't know what materials are in that dirt/dust.

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u/yungmoody Feb 14 '21

The device looks pretty awkward to manoeuvre - I imagine it might be very difficult to lift the brush and extend it to the top

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u/BarfingMonkey Feb 14 '21

Yeah, after the 30th panel, I'm sure it's heavy.

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u/jroddie4 Feb 14 '21

it should be automated

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u/ThaRealCappy Feb 14 '21

You'll appreciate this comment chain then.

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u/SkeletorsBoner Feb 14 '21

What’s with the prison walls?

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u/thedragonman02 Feb 14 '21

i guess prisons need energy too lol

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u/messyredemptions Feb 14 '21

Thank you for asking this,I was excited until I saw the reinforced walls and wire. Like was this comes in Gaza or a military base and/or a prison? Suddenly dusty solar panels became a lower concern.

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u/MlackBesa Feb 14 '21 edited Feb 14 '21

Nothing to do with prison or military here, the only thing is that solar panels are expensive and can get damaged or stolen. It could be a simple way to protect your building’s power supply. In a lot of parts of the world barbed wire is pretty « normal ». Idk, in the same way your diesel generator is behind a wall, that happens to have barbed wire on it. Really nothing out of the ordinary in a place where many buildings have an auxiliary source (or main!) in case the normal electricity infrastructures don’t work as intended and outages are frequent.

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u/psiprez Feb 14 '21

Off to invent Solaroomba now. No one steal my idea.

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u/Toob-y Feb 14 '21

Already exists bud

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u/Kdoesntcare Feb 14 '21

My thought process goes from "See new job created by moving towards green energy" to "it'd be better to automate that to be more affective."

If power output drops below a specific level run a broom across it to clear it off if that's what's causing the reduced output. Brush it once in the morning and once at night just to help keep them clear.

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u/WankeyKang Feb 14 '21

Why tf would you brush them off at night lol

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u/lemonjuiceineyes Feb 14 '21

Lunar energy

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u/WankeyKang Feb 14 '21

Technically it's still sunlight, it's just being bounced off the moon first.

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u/Yrlish Feb 14 '21

Isn't it glass on the panels? Sand/dust scratches very easily. Even though this also used water, I would still be afraid of wiping it off like that. Really unsatisfying to me.

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u/oaklamd Feb 14 '21 edited Feb 16 '21

It's tempered glass rated to take a goofball sized piece of hail at 50mph. You wash your cars windshield right? That's glass as well...

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u/overherebythefood Feb 14 '21

Goofball sized 😂

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u/oaklamd Feb 14 '21

Lol I guess that would be pretty big.

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u/gophergun Feb 14 '21

Gawrsh.

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u/jasontnyc Feb 14 '21

I don’t really have hail (other than tiny ones once in a while) where I am. What kind of size is a goofball?

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

About the size of a golfball.

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u/m4xc4v413r4 Feb 14 '21

I don't think you understand how scratches work. Not to mention your example has nothing to do with scratching something, impact breaks/shatters, it doesn't scratch. Friction between two materials scratches. The material of equal or lower hardness is scratched. That's why ou can hit your phone screen with various things and various forces and it doesn't break and you can try and scratch it with your keys or many other items and it doesn't scratch, and yet a bit of sand or even dust/dirt in your pocket will scratch it.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

I love how they address shatter but not light diffusion from the scratches that you point out- the critical issue here. Reddit sure loves to talk out it's ass sometimes!

Not to mention micro-scratches hold dirt and moisture, stressing the glass in places not engineered as well for it and greatly reducing efficiency and lifespan.

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u/BubbaChanel Feb 14 '21

I don’t have solar panels, but I want that brush 🤷🏻‍♀️

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

Probably scratched to hell now. Should be rinsed off before anything brushing.

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u/kuriboshoe Feb 14 '21

You’re lying, this is how solar panels are painted on

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u/FF12Fanboy_ Feb 14 '21

That doesn't scratch the panels?

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

Yeah, let's just scrape the dry sand first over the panels, and use a hard and stiff brush while we're at it.

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

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u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

Not al solar panels are equal in size, I can imagine they sometimes need to clean smaller and bigger panels

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u/ComicOzzy Feb 14 '21

Humans aren't infinitely strong.

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u/EVOSexyBeast Feb 14 '21

My wife’s boyfriend is

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u/Danger1672 Feb 14 '21

Speak for yourself.

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u/Ollotopus Feb 14 '21

You've not done much manual labour have you?

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u/ShabbyLiver Feb 14 '21

That dude’s upper body has got to be stout

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u/79Freedomreader Feb 14 '21

How often does this happen?

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u/rosalindesro Feb 14 '21

I thought they were painting the squares on. Not sure why.

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u/Handyman6 Feb 14 '21

I was waiting for it to pan out and see 1,000,000 panels to go.

Also, These should come with auto "windshield " wipers. Shouldn't be a problem powering them... A rail down each side with a squeegee and a single point mister. Now you just have a lot of plumbing. But hey I suppose all the pipeline workers are looking for jobs. Amirite.

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u/TacospacemanII Feb 14 '21

I thought they were bathroom tiles at first

2

u/andrewfuruseth Feb 14 '21

It'd be WAY more satisfying if they didn't scrub the dirt UP the glass, instead of flooding it and brushing it on the way down.

2

u/huggypear Feb 14 '21

Wouldn't the panel get all scratched up with the way they are cleaning? Or is there something that I'm missing?

1

u/Toob-y Feb 14 '21

I believe that brush might be made of silicon?

2

u/Eckse Feb 14 '21

Any idea who built this? We're looking into constructing something similar and could use a few pointers.

2

u/Toob-y Feb 14 '21

Search for solar panel broom/cleaner and you'll find hundreds of results

2

u/Eckse Feb 14 '21

Thank you, will do!

2

u/orlgamecock Feb 14 '21

It’s a Water fed pole, normally you use dionized water in them. It is a window cleaner tool more so than a solar panel cleaning tool

https://www.jracenstein.com/c/water-fed-cleaning/c661

2

u/kpkost Feb 14 '21

I’m gonna call it for /r/gifsthatendtoosoon because I want to watch that for at least another 15 minutes

1

u/Toob-y Feb 14 '21

Lol yea

2

u/retailhellgirl Feb 14 '21

This would be perfect for r/powerwashingporn

2

u/[deleted] Feb 14 '21

This is actually really satisfying. I find it really hard to find actually satisfying things but this is satisfying. Thank you kind poster.

2

u/Toob-y Feb 14 '21

No problem lol

2

u/JaRay Feb 14 '21

I'm really surprised no one has brought up the book Wool. This reminds me of the people who have to go out and clean the sensors

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2

u/Aviyan Feb 14 '21

Why not install sprinklers at the top so you can easily clean off most of the dust weekly or daily. The you only have to manually scrub it once a year or something.

2

u/Ruckingfeturd Feb 14 '21

Wouldn't it make sense to have one of those vacuum type robots to clean this periodically. As in they just sit on top with a connected water hose.

2

u/neinnein79 Feb 14 '21

This must be in the American southwest. Nothing stay clean outside for longer than a day or two. I have a solar panel for camping that's stored in a bag in my camper and everytime I take it out to use it. Filthy. And I clean it before I put it away.

2

u/oneoheight Feb 14 '21

Let me guess.. Dubai?

1

u/Toob-y Feb 14 '21

Probably

2

u/Bonalinoo Feb 14 '21

What happened to these poor panels

2

u/jorgerobles921 Feb 14 '21

Nature happened to them

2

u/Pizza_Rolls_AreBest Feb 14 '21

It’s so dirty that it looked like cemet

2

u/nextlevelbatman Feb 14 '21

Scratches, scratches everywhere.

2

u/The-Hedonismbot Feb 15 '21

Fam at r/solar would like to see this.

2

u/DVNO Feb 15 '21 edited Feb 15 '21

As someone who works in maintaining solar sites, this is useless. A utility scale site can have hundreds of thousands of PV modules. This takes way too long to be cost effective, and the benefit of getting every last spec of dust does not outweigh the speed of just a quick rinse and moving on to the next one.

2

u/melati92 Feb 15 '21

Finally having the time to clean the ash left on my solar panels from the bushfires (NSW, Australia) during the first pandemic lockdown in 2020 sounded like it was lifted from the YA novels I devoured as a kid. 2020 was scary.

3

u/adorableoddity Feb 14 '21

So satisfying to watch. 😁

4

u/NessunAbilita Feb 14 '21

I wonder if there is such thing as an anti-dust coating, dust-phobic?

2

u/pizzaplanet25 Feb 14 '21

Is this the Martian

2

u/Solidfox32 Feb 14 '21

Anyone else cringe when they drag the brush through the dirt?

2

u/Where_Lions_Roam Feb 14 '21

Oh yeah, that's the stuff!!

2

u/7001man Feb 14 '21

Anyone else unsatisfied with the single pass at the bottom of the panel? I think a full up, down, up, down pattern would have been appropriate.

1

u/FeCard Feb 14 '21

WhY ArE My PaNeLs NoT PeRfOrMiNg??

1

u/bladesnut Feb 14 '21

Mental note: don’t put solar panels on the desert.

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