Dusty Solar Panels

We have been staying in Johnson Valley over the Thanksgiving Weekend. If you ever been in Johnson Valley during the King of the Hammers or other times when thousands of RV with Offroad vehicles have you seen the dust cloud, even after a night with minimal traffic is the dust still suspended in the air. With very low wind is it settling everywhere, For an example of Solar Panels.

The picture shows the Solar Panels in the front that has been blown clean with a compressor, the ones in the back not yet. This is after 4 days of heavy traffic and very minimal wind for the last three days.

After cleaning the Solar Panels with the compressed air is the output increased a good amount.

Before the start of the cleaning was 1731 Watt produced and afterward 1935. Some cooling has of course occurred but as the graph shows are minimal power dropped after some time. The cleaned caused a 12% increase in the output. Looking back at the pressure washing example that showed an 8% increase in output is this again a smaller amount. Not anything to worry about in the summer with plenty of sun and long days, but for sure worth getting in the winter where we barely keeping up with the comsumption.