[jouk45]

 a few houses i already clean, have had solar panels put on their roofs, some 10 some 14 panels, should i charge to clean each solar  panel as a pane of glass, or do you  treat them as a specialized clean, and charge more seperatley,

[Smudger]

Charge more -  we charge 3x what we would for a mormal window if they have just a few panels and want them done
once in every 2 to 3 cleans

if they have a roof full and it's once/twice a year prices are around £50 upwards depending on access etc..

Darran

[jouk45]

thanks smudger, that is what i thought, there must be some special deal going on solar panels, cause they are appearing everywher just now, can only be good for extra business

[Smudger]

Goverment backed scheme for the UK to hit it's 'green' target

Darran

[Blue Frog Systems]

I saw a solar cleaning company who were looking for people to clean solar pannels - they took about a 25% cut from it. Got the pricing out of them and it was shocking what they were going to charge people. Good for the customer, bad for the person cleaning them. They didnt take access into the pricing, it was done m2. Anyway i told him his pricing system was flawed and that was that - though he did contact me a few times to try to get me on board as he knew i had more knowledge than he did.

His reccomendation was 2 cleans per year March / April  &  June / July

This was based on information taken from the met office and seemed to be right from what i looked into it.

Now i have a few customers with these pannels and same as you Joe have noticed them popping up all over the place. This is what got me thinking after a customer of mine had 16 put on their roof.

My thought would be to reccomend 2 cleans per year as the solar cleaning company reccomended and offer a discount to the customer when signing up for the 2 clean deal.

Take my customer who has 16 pannels.... say £5 a pop for cleaning per pannel which would give you £80 for cleaning the 16 pannels. My customer has good access (something that will need to be taken into account when pricing. 16 pannels would mean a total price of £80 @ £5 per pannel. Wouldnt take any longer than an hour inc set up. So if you could get say 4 jobs with 16 pannels, then your laughing

My idea is to charge £6 per pannel, but offer a £2 discount per pannel on the second clean. This would give the customer the idea that they are getting a discount on the clean but you would be getting £5 per pannel over the two cleans. If the customer didnt have the second clean then you would be getting a bit extra for the first clean.

Have seen that some charge up to £15 per pannel. Am not certain what a pannel will produce in energy to money ratio, but reckon im about right on a 2 clean / £5 per pannel clean = £160 cost to customer.

Am in the process of putting a letter together to hand out to any propertys that i see that have solar pannels. Am going to make up a map and get names if the property owner is home when i dish out the introduction letter for a database.

Im also going to be doing a similar database for people with conservatorys too.

[GoodFella2006]

2 cleans a year £160

Do those panels generate 160 pounds worth of electricity a year?

It sounds like false economy for the homeowner IMHO

[Richard BF]

The kits your talking about 10-16 pannel are 4k systems provided for free by the sounds of things  (or pepople pay for them if they want)


they certainly do generate more than £160

£600+ a year
£20k + over 25 years...

[jouk45]

blimey, i never did imagine we could charge those kind of prices, most of my custys panels are easy access, i was thinking £2 or £2.50 per panel, and another thing i forgot to mention, one custy told me they are self cleaning, i said that right, then how is it going to get all that bird muck of then, 

[Blue Frog Systems]

Taken from Solarclean website

[Jeff Brimble]

Nice one Blue  
The following quote is taken from Pro's thanks you Carl Stacey   and the 35% increase in efficiency is after only 4 months dirt. So its a useful figure to quote ?

"Earlier this year we were asked to conduct a test by a locally based, national solar system installation company.

The p.v. units had been installed 4 months previously. We chose a day when the weather was consistant ie. clear skies, they tested their live output before we conducted the clean, we cleaned them and waited for them to dry (drank a cuppa!). The company re-tested the live output and found a 34.9% increase!

However, the installation company wouldn't let us approach their customer database as part of the sales pitch to the end user (provided by the manufacturer) is that the units are self cleaning and would not need to be cleaned for up to 40 years!

Obviously we are going to take a direct approach anyway but feel that, even if used as a loss-leader, given the benefit over cost implication, it would potentialy open more opportunities for us in the long term especially as no further investment is required. Long live wfp!

It is an interesting one though isn't it.

And whilst i'm here, Happy New Year to you all!
and a happy and profitable New Year to you Carl    

[Blue Frog Systems]

No probs Jeff .... Im thinking of contacting a couple of solar pannel instilation companys to see what the estimated value of the different pannels are (what £ they will produce)

This should give me the information to provide an accurate price regarding the different size & kw/h pannels that are out there

[Jeff Brimble]

How is kwh connected to size of panels for our use, all we need is square area for our time ?

[Blue Frog Systems]

Jeff there are different kw/h pannels ranging from 1 upwards. 4 kw/h is the max you can have on a domestic property with a max of 16 pannels (customer told me this as they wanted 28 pannels - they had the space but were only allowed 16)

I know what you mean about the square area, but if i find out the input to the grid it will tell me wether it is worth going for the propertys with the lower kw/h pannels on.

[andrewlefkas]

I have solar panels on my house -15 panels . Paid 8,000 for system installed 27 th 2011August, so far they have earned me £300 . As im sat writing this the power comming in is 1.3 KW. Yes they are worth cleaning -although I havnt dont mine yet .
Im expecting around £1200 back in first year -£1000 from regeneration tarriff and £200 costs saved on leccy bill .EDF just sent new bill round with payments cut from £45 pm down to £29.00 . So yes they are worth cleaning and if you can charge a good wack for them thats great. The folk who have them put on for free probably wont pay much because they dont get actual cash only the cash saved on leccy so maybe £150-200 per year depending if they are in house on a day when all free leccy is comming on or if they are at work then they cany use leccy and it goes back to grid.
I dont think there is any issues actually cleaning them as they are quite robust construction as you would expect .
The test must have been carried out on a cloudless day - to give you some idea as I type this leccy from panels has hit 2kw briefly and down to 500 watt when clouds obscured sun plus sun is very low at present with it being winter .
Best case scenario is sun at 90 deg to panel - equals max power , when you get away from that then power falls off although still useful. Guys who put my in said can be up to 400 volts comming in .We also have an isolating switch in garage so could be worth asking homeowner to knock it off whilst you clean although the wiring will be underneath panels and shouldnt cause a problem.
Good luck and keep us posted .

[Blue Frog Systems]

Hi Andrew, thanks for that.

What kw/h rated are your solar pannels and is there any chance of a photo of them ? you could email me if you didnt want to post and i wouldnt share if you didnt want me to

[andrewlefkas]

Bluefrog ,its a 2.9 KW system ,south facing with no shading . I will take a picture tommorow as its getting dark now . The tarriff is about to change from 12th Dec from 43.5 pence per KWH down 50% to 21p per KWH so the payouts are going to be a lot less -well 50 % -always was good with figures !! THe free solar pays the generation tarriff to the companies who installed them with a 25 year lease .
 To bore you the tarriff was meant to be under consultation finishong end DEC but govt jumped gun and cut rate early -went to court and appeal by tree huggers was upheld so dont know where it will go at moment. Suspect GOVT will compromise a bit and settle at maybe 30 KWH but any ones guess. I will take pic tommorow .

[Ian Rochester]

We charge £50 +vat for cleaning a 16 or 20 panel roof

[Blue Frog Systems]

what if there are only 8 / 4 pannels Ian ?

thanks andrew

[lcwalker]

Can solar panels just be cleaned with a WFP just like any window?.

[david watts]

Can solar panels just be cleaned with a WFP just like any window?.

no you have to add  fairy to your water