Solar Panel Cleaning Services
Residential Solar Cleaning
We learned how to clean solar in the residential market. We gained our initial experience guerrilla marketing. We knocked on doors of people that had solar. Our very first client was a homeowner with 10 panels and we only charged them $25! We had no idea what to charge as there was no Kelly Blue Book for solar maintenance.
We soon found that this pricing model would not be sustainable. In order to get larger commercial clients we needed to get at least a One Million Dollar General Liability Insurance Policy, Workers Compensation, and we realized that these and all the other costs would not be covered with these low prices. We thought in these solar communities with every house having solar we would just set up a route like the landscapers and be just fine.
The problem was that no one knew that solar had to be cleaned. Most people did not even know how it worked. They thought the solar company just magically maintained it but never came out to their house.
They would say I think our solar company does it…”Have you ever seen them do it?” the answer was always inevitably NO. However, with new technology there is always a learning curve. The lack of education still continues to this day because solar is still in its infancy. California has more residential solar than the rest of the US combined, but sometimes it takes a few years to notice the decrease in production due to soiling. You have to study your production year over year and account for differences in weather to accurately gauge the decrease. The average house has about a 10-20% decrease in production during the dry summer months if they have never had their panels cleaned.
Per capita in the contiguous U.S. San Diego has the most residential solar at about 12% of homes. The only place with more residential solar density is Hawaii. We will never be too big to clean a home owner’s solar. Even though 99% or more of our revenue comes from the big utility and commercial customers we will not forget where we came from.
