Clean Solar Solutions have completed the solar panel cleaning at Castell Howell Foods, Llanelli. Castell Howell foods are one of the country’s leading independent food wholesalers and have 816 solar panels are mounted on the roof of their Llanelli-based headquarters. The solar array is made up of A-Sun 245P polycrystalline solar panels, Power One 12,5 inverters. Annual ouput is expected to be 176,000 kWh and will reduce their CO2 by 146,000 KG annually.
We were contacted by one of our partners, Sun Spirit, who installed and maintain the solar array to carry out the solar panel cleaning. The array is monitored using an Ener-G Switch2 monitoring system which was able to tell Sun Spirit that there was a drop in power output. When Sun Spirit engineers visited site, it was determined that the solar panels needed cleaning. The main reason for the drop in output was bird droppings.
Bird droppings such as this cause the output from the whole panel to drop. Partial shading of just one cell on a 36 cell solar panel will reduce its power output. Because all of the cells are connected in a series string, the weakest cell will bring the others down to its reduced power level. A few bird droppings like this on several solar panels on an array will dent the power output from the whole array dramatically, hence the need for solar panel cleaning.
Our solar panel cleaners accessed the roof via a Genie Z60/34 cherry picker and worked using harnesses attached to the installed mansafe system. All 816 solar panels were cleaned during one day, meaning minimum disruption to the client. The difference as a result of the cleaning can clearly be seen from the pictures below.
The newly cleaned solar panels will now be producing to their maximum again.
If you own or maintain a solar panel system in Llanelli or the rest of Wales and would like a free quote for solar panel cleaning, please fill in the form on the contact us page.
