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Common Solar Blockers – Dust, Leaves, and Water
Panel upkeep is a necessity as dust build-up poorly affects your panel’s performance. How often your solar panels should be cleaned is influenced by many factors.

Does dust affect solar panels? The short answer is yes!
The greatest factors that contribute to dust build-up are your geographical location and the surrounding elements that might pollute your system.

While heavy rain, as some smaller studies suggest, might help to clean and clear debris and pollutants from your panels, most large studies report that dust build-up can lower the efficiency of our system in just a minute – around 5% or less.

While dust is a common pollutant, leaves also block sunlight, thus affecting your panels’ efficiency. Mountain View, a solar energy provider, reports that clean panels can double the energy overnight, even after 15 months of operation.

Solar systems installed in dust-prone areas, such as near main roads and farmlands, will require more frequent and thorough maintenance. Failure to clean dust off panels installed in such areas can see a detrimental impact on solar production. Research has noted that the ‘reduction in solar efficiency due to dust on PV panel is approximately 40%’ in dust-prone areas.

Bird droppings: Enemy No. 1
Bird droppings can affect a panel’s performance to a greater to degree than dust build-up. The common string-inverter PV system might result in minimal or no energy being produced if bird droppings cover part or all of just one solar panel. A micro-inverter system might see the affected panel/s producing no or limited power. You can read more about string and micro-inverters here.

Trees situated near your panels will not only drop their leaves and branches but attract birds as well. These cause bird droppings and debris over time, which will not only require cleaning and clearing but pose a safety hazard. Hence, a monthly or annual gutter cleaning, and bird proofing, may be necessary.

Another consideration to keeping your panels performing at their best is the angle. Flat arrays will need more servicing as water can pool up, leaving muddy residue as soon as it evaporates. On the other hand, proper-angled arrays can take advantage of rain without having muddy residue. This is because rain can effortlessly slide across them, keeping them mostly free of dust and pollutants.