Clean Panels.
While rain takes care of most of the day to day build-up of dirt and grime, some PV panels installed in dusty environments may need checking. The cleaner the panels, the better they will perform. There is no need to keep your panels immaculately clean but a significant build-up of film or dust may compromise performance.
Ensure that all of your inverters are functioning properly.
Most inverters have a screen and/ or LED lights. Check that the lights are green and no error codes are being displayed. If your inverter is flashing red or displaying a fault, then it may just be a case that the trip switches have tripped out on a distribution board.
Similar to the electrics in a house, flipping the trip switch back up normally restarts the inverter. If the trip switch is immediately thrown off again, then an electrician will need to check over the electrics. Larger commercial systems, especially ground mounted arrays, may have more than one set of trip switches to be checked - some on the array itself and others further back where the PV system is connected to electrics.
If you are in any doubt, then a qualified electrician will be able to assist you in checking the trip switches if you are unsure about doing this yourself.
Restarting an inverter.
If all of the trip switches are on and the inverter is still showing an error/ red light, the next step is to re-boot the inverter. Much like a computer, the inverters rely on the software to run efficiently and occasionally need to be restarted. An inverter has two sources of power, one from the mains and the other from the PV panels. Both sources have to be safely isolated for the inverter to reboot successfully.
Shading.
Hard shading of even just a small area of a PV panel can drastically reduce the performance of an array. Check that the undergrowth, trees and vegetation have not grown enough to cast shadows onto panels on the sunniest parts of the day.
Monitoring.
Many of the PV systems that we have installed are fitted with a Solar Log. This monitoring system provides real term data and alerts for our clients if the PV system is not performing as expected. While this may not be ideal for every PV system, it can easily be retro fitted as it is compatible with all makes of inverter.
We provide a full suite of green technologies including Combined Heat and Power (CHP), waste to energy solutions, LED lighting, battery storage, heat recovery, electric vehicle charging and voltage optimisation.
Please get in touch if we can help or if you require further information.
