soiling city [RE-wrenches]

[Peter Parrish]

Tests in Davis, CA (a semi agricultural area) indicate that soiling can
decrease production by up to 10% within one year. 

If you wash them off once a year at the beginning of the dry season (do you
have one?) you can keep the drop in production down to 4% average over a
year.

No experience with sprinklers-but I suspect that cleaning more than 2-3X per
year may not return significant improvements.

- Peter 

Peter T. Parrish, Ph.D., President
California Solar Engineering, Inc.
820 Cynthia Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90065
Ph 323-258-8883
Mobile 323-839-6108
Fax 323-258-8885
peter.parrish at calsolareng.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: Marco Mangelsdorf [mailto:marco at pvthawaii.com] 
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 9:14 AM
To: RE-wrenches at topica.com
Subject: soiling city [RE-wrenches]



I’ve got a roof-mounted array on an essentially flat roof in an area that is
very dusty with little rainfall.  I’d appreciate knowing what the estimated
percentage reduction in output might be for such a heavily dusty area
compared to a light soiling location.  I’m thinking about rigging up a rain
bird kind of sprinkler to hose down the 16 kW array every day for 15 minutes
in the early AM hours as a way to keep the glass cleaner.  Has anyone out
there put something like that together?  With the hard water in the area, I
figure that I would need to condition the water used to hose down the array
to minimize the mineral build-up on the glass and frames.

Thanks,
marco


Marco Mangelsdorf 
Electrical Contractor License C-26351
69 Railroad Avenue, A-7
Hilo, Hawai'i 96720
(808) 969-3281, 934-7462 facsimile
www.provisiontechnologies.com 


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