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Planet Green
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As with any heating system, regular maintenance of solar power systems is par for the course. Maintaining solar panels means making sure as much sunlight as possible hits them, since their surfaces are the whole ballgame: Dust alone can reduce electricity production by up to 7 percent per year [source: CalFinder]. And, of course, you keep your solar panels dust-free by treating them like any other smooth surfaces around your home. It's just a different kind of dusting.
Fortunately, for their owners, solar panels can be cleaned with a little effort and some soap and water. In general, you'll need to clean your solar panels up to four times a year, depending on how much dust and how many bird droppings tend to accumulate on them in a given span of time. Plan to spend about eight to 16 hours per year on your solar-panel cleaning endeavors [source: CalFinder]. If going up on your roof to clean them by hand sounds too daunting, you'll find that using a hose from the ground is often sufficient.
While cleaning a solar panel by hand works just as well as any other method, there are also automatic systems that make the task easier. Automatic solar-panel cleaning systems are permanently attached to the panel frames. They dispense soap and water to clean the panels as often as you want. They also rinse the panels to keep them free of soapy film. This method is usually a bit safer than cleaning by hand, since it means you don't have to climb up on the roof with a bucket and hose every few weeks.
Outside of cleaning, periodic physical inspections will tell you whether your panels are structurally sound and will indicate when it's time to replace parts, such as the inverter or the batteries in the storage system.
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