I found a window washing guy that is willing to clean panels and enlisted him to do all panels associated with my house meter. Cost for about 300 ground mount plus 26 roof top was just under $800. Per unit cost was about $2 per panel of ground mount and about $5 for roof top.
The really big question right now is: "Is cleaning cost effective?" "Will the cleaning justify it's cost with increased income?" Right now, the prospects of cost effectiveness seem poor. This time of year, that meter has been producing peaks of about 200kwh of surplus energy on very good days. Since the cleaning, we have not yet had a very good day but the production on poor days seems about the same as before the cleaning. More here after we see some good days.
My revenue on good days has been about 200 x $.06 = $12. The benefit of the cleaning is expected to last no longer than a year. So, to break even, I'm looking for increased sales of about $2/day on average.
The higher the value of the energy, the more return on cleaning cost. Those Bluebonnet customers that offset only some or all of their use see a value of about $.10/kwh while my value is $.06 since I sell essentially all of my production.
My window cleaner:
https://ktswindowcleaning.com/
The following directed to the window cleaner, Kevin:
This is all stuff posted earlier in the blog but which is now difficult to find.
Due to many considerations, I currently think my ground mount "two faced" rails are the most attractive ground mount panel configuration. Typically, most of my rails are made from three joints of 2 3/8" used oil well pipe sitting on top of five posts, also 2 3/8". Total material for a 90-100' rail is slightly more than four joints; typical length of a joint is 30-33 feet. Cost per joint is around $25. The ~100 foot rail will support up to about 28 east facing panels plus an equal number that face west. The pipe material cost per panel is around $2. Most other schemes for ground mounts cost around $100 while roof top mounting might cost $400/panel. The ~100' rails can be serviced with a single run of 10ga wire on a 30 amp breaker. This takes advantage of the fact that east and west panels will not produce well at the same time; the wire needs to be big enough only for either one side or the other. It may also be attractive to share a single inverter for one east panel and one west panel.
I've recently found that Fayette Electric Coop has some disincentives for customer PV production which, in my case, would reduce my income by 30+%. Bluebonnet Electric Coop seems to be the very best of nearby utilities in support of customer production.
7/10/2022
The verdict is in! Yesterday was a good sun day and any improved production due to cleaning should have been evident. There was no noticeable improvement.
Before the 7/2 or 7/3 cleaning, a good sales day was 190-200 kwh. Yesterday (July 9), I sold 192.7 kwh.
So, I will not be doing any more panel cleaning.
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