Pollen Dust impact on production

[plannersteve]

We get quite a bit of pine tree pollen in the Idaho Panhandle. So I did a little experiment to see how much impact it has on the production from my panels. The pictures are a bit hard to see, but I washed the pollen off the bottom two strings of my system and left as much as possible on the third (top) string. Today it looks like the difference between washed and unwashed is 0.6%. Not a great deal of difference. I didn't really wash them, just hosed them off, so it wasn't much effort either.
In case you were wondering

[BackwoodsEE]

Good to know. In Eastern WA (not that far from you), I have a dusting of that stuff on my panels, too. Also some spots of bird poop here and there, which is probably causing a bigger hit to production.

[bcroe]

Some dust was noted here in northern IL as well. I think the heavy rain I am watching now will take care
of it, will watch for reoccurrence. Bruce Roe

[ImInPhxAZ]

In PHX, with micros, some panels have several streaks of pigeon poo, other panels are clean, and all show withing a couple watts of each other. Unless they're caked up, it just doesn't matter much.

[Steve C]

Thanks for that post. I, likely along with many others, always wondered about that very thing.

[TAZ427]

Good to know. I had some folks on Facebook talking about needing to wash the periodically to keep them at peak efficiency, and my research had suggested that it's more of a hassle than what you would get in return. I know the ones at work (6.5MW Carport Solar Install - that's what my profile pic is of) only gets a 'nature wash' in the winter months. And looking at neighbors panels they're not washing them either. Pretty much no rain from May - October here, and the things look pretty dirty by the end of summer. Even if it's 2-3% it wouldn't be worth hiring someone to wash them, and I don't like climbing around on roof tops as much as I used to.

[JakeTrilla]

Good to know for those in Southern Nevada! The pollen can get SUPER thick around here sometimes!

[MoJ]

Today it looks like the difference between washed and unwashed is 0.6%. Not a great deal of difference. I didn't really wash them, just hosed them off, so it wasn't much effort either.
In case you were wondering

That's EXACTLY what I did!! I measured same time of day, same sky condition ... after washing (and I actually did the full solar panel cleaner spray with the hose, soft brush, rinse, then squeegee)... got the exact same 0.6% increase. Given our water costs in SoCal, definitely not a good ROI in materials, water, and most importantly, the ibuprofen I needed afterwards

[plannersteve]

MoJ, thanks for furthering the knowledge.

I've had several cycles of snow falling, then sliding off my panels the last two months. They now look like new