Maintenance for Commercial Solar PV systems

One of the main benefits of Commercial Solar PV systems is that they do not require large amounts of maintenance.

Please see below for our advice about looking after your Solar PV equipment to keep it as productive as possible.

The main components of the system are the solar panels themselves and the grid tie inverter or inverters.

The solar panels are essentially semi-conductors – they attract light and allow this to be turned into electrons and then pass through them into an electrical circuit.

Solar panels have no moving parts and are therefore often described as maintenance free. Of course, solar panels do degrade at varying rates but should always come with a minimum power output warranty for 25 years to ensure a high level of performance.

What is recommended is that you keep them clean. How much involvement this will require depends on your own installation, as most solar panels are also designed to be self-cleaning to a certain extent.

However, their effectiveness will depend on the pitch of the roof or the angle of installation. Solar panels at a higher angle will have better performing self-cleaning mechanisms, whereas those with lower pitches will need a little more help.

The process of cleaning a Commercial Solar PV system is a simple one and no different from a traditional commercial window cleaning job, once safe and secure access is available to the solar panels. We normally recommend to our clients that this is done at least bi-annually and around Spring time if possible.

The inverter(s) arrangement for a Commercial Solar PV system is a slightly more involved topic. It is down to the skill and experience of the electrical engineer designing the string layout for the system as to how effectively the overall PV plant will perform.

This involves multiple connections and of course an inverter that is constantly converting DC power into AC power all day every day. This is a more active part of the overall PV system and one that will require slightly more attention.

This can be carried out in the form of monitoring systems that will keep you informed regarding how well the system is working, as well as identifying faults that might occur, allowing them to be quickly rectified.

For this reason, particularly on larger systems, we recommend an annual or bi-annual visit from one of our installation team to check all the electrical connections and ensure that the PV system is working at maximum capacity. This allows us to take any preventative measures to ensure seamless production is always achieved.

Carmichael Browns take pride in the way we design our systems for our customers and use over 30 years of engineering experience to create the most effective, bespoke, value for money solutions for each of our customers, regardless of roof size.

Call us today on 01245 227100 to discover how we can help your business >