Fossil Creek sits at the Ten Mile and Deer Flat intersection the Ada County Highway District has been rebuilding into a roundabout, and construction silt is unusually bad for solar. Fine dust does more damage to output per gram than coarse dust does.
This is counterintuitive. A coarse grain of soil on a panel blocks light over its own small area and leaves the rest clear. Fine construction silt spreads into a thin continuous film covering the entire cell surface, and a uniform film across the whole panel costs proportionally more output than scattered coarse particles covering the same total mass. So the very fine dust coming off the roundabout work is worse for your production than the same weight of farm soil would be.
A panel with leaf litter or bird mess on it looks obviously dirty. A panel with an even film of construction silt looks very nearly normal from the ground, because there is no contrast to see. That is why soiling losses on a new-build array go unnoticed for months: the owner is looking for visible dirt and there is none, while the production data has been quietly down. Monitoring output against the same month last year is the only reliable way to catch it.
Panels get flooded with pure deionized water, which lifts the film and carries it away and then dries leaving nothing behind, because it has no dissolved solids in it. Nothing abrasive touches the anti-reflective coating, and no soap is used, since soap residue attracts the next round of dust faster than clean glass. On a new array still inside its warranty, using anything abrasive is also a good way to create a warranty argument.
The construction condition is temporary, which affects the sensible frequency rather than the method. While the intersection work continues, homes on the north and east edges of Fossil Creek closest to it will re-soil faster than normal, so a shorter interval makes sense now and a longer one once the work finishes and the disturbed ground is restored. Solar panel cleaning is quoted by array size.
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For output, yes. Fine silt spreads into a thin continuous film across the whole cell surface, and a uniform film costs proportionally more production than scattered coarse particles of the same total mass, which block light only over their own small area.
Very likely, if you are near the roundabout work. An even film of fine silt looks nearly normal from the ground because there is no contrast to see, while the production data is quietly down. Monitoring output against the same month last year is the reliable check.
Not the way we do it. Panels are flooded with deionized water with nothing abrasive touching the anti-reflective coating and no soap used. Abrasive cleaning on a new array is exactly what creates a warranty argument, which is a good reason not to attempt it yourself.
More often than normal, particularly on the north and east edges of Fossil Creek nearest the work. It is a temporary condition, so a shorter interval now and a longer one once the intersection is finished and the ground restored is the sensible approach.
By array size, since a small roof array and a large one are different jobs. We look at the array, how it is mounted and the access before quoting rather than applying a flat per-panel rate.
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