Dear Members,
We thought you may be interested in some recent activity to clean the panels and carry out some maintenance. Ben gives us an update:
In May the panels were cleaned for the first time at Bridge Street since the array was installed. Due to the nature of the roof it is unfortunately quite expensive to clean the panels because of the specialist access required – but also necessary because of the upper panels being at a very shallow angle, and fairly close to both the recycling centre (dusty) and some tall, pollen laden trees . We will therefore be looking at doing some kind of analysis to work out the best period for cleaning cycles. Here are some photos of the work:
Some testing has been done to prove the safety systems and quality of the wiring is up to standard – this showed only minor impacts from degradation over time. A minor upgrade to the earthing system may be required. A program of planned maintenance is being devised due to the requirements of our insurance policy. We had a small drop out of information from the monitoring system which has been rectified, but output was not affected. The system is performing at similar levels to other systems we are aware of in the area, and above predicted levels. Some more work will be done on checking performance of the system on a per inverter basis.
Looking forward to seeing you at the AGM!