Solar System Maintenance is a critical part of your investment into solar energy, and if your solar installer isn’t a full service provider or if they end up going out of business, you could see your solar savings impacted significantly by worn or damaged components.
You made the smart choice to invest in solar, and you deserve to see that investment pay out in resilience and energy generation. Let’s discuss some of the most common solar system maintenance issues, and how you can save big by keeping your service providers on standby.
We’re going to focus on the two main fail states that we consider with solar system maintenance – component failure vs. impacted performance. With component failure, some part of your system is down for the count, and it’s creating a situation where your energy generation and storage capabilities are significantly impacted. Whether an individual panel or array is damaged, an inverter is offline, or your battery is experiencing an issue, these are all major problems that can tank your system production significantly.
The main problem here is not knowing the what or why, and especially important, the when. Catching these kinds of issues early means you can schedule solar system maintenance and have your system back up and running quickly. Not catching these issues with monitoring or regular system inspections can mean going weeks or months without proper production, which significantly cuts into your solar savings. An annual inspection plan can be a great way to ensure that your system is cared for and maintained properly.
Solar System Maintenance – Weather and Wear
Now let’s look at what it means to experience impacted performance for your solar system, as compared to component failure. You might not experience a full breakdown of your system components, but if your panels are dirty and obscured, or if critters are getting in where they shouldn’t be, then your system could be losing efficiency without you noticing. This is even harder to detect than total component failure because it doesn’t show up as a large loss – we’re talking production dips of 10% – 30%. Not so dramatic that you sound the alarm bells, but certainly a loss of efficiency that will cost you over time.
We suggest regular panel cleanings and inspections to catch these kinds of issues before they become a big problem, because solar system maintenance is the best way to ensure your investment is always working hard for you. To learn more, call: 707-248-3703.
