Manual cleaning of elevated carports is difficult. Normally a lift truck is required and water to wash the panels is difficult to get, as you either have to have a large tank to drag along in a vehicle or hundreds of feet of hose as well as a filtering system to clean the water.
Also, the seven degree mounting angle, coupled with seven rows of panels in a portrait layout, make it very difficult to reach out with long handle brushing equipment. Often it is difficult to reach both sides of a carport array, as frequently one array may be placed next to a fence, prohibiting access from that side. This is the case at both Palm Springs Motors and Fiesta Ford.
As noted in our last blog article, Heliotex completed the elevated carport system at Fiesta Ford in November. Construction on the elevated carports began in October of 2014. Just during the construction phase of the carport structures and solar panel installation, the solar panels got very dirty. Note that there is a lot of wind coming through the pass area (hence all of the wind mills) to the west of Palm Springs. This wind can bring up a lot of dust and debris and make a manual cleaning option less productive.
When we engaged our system for the first time, we set in on a rinse cycle only to wash off as much of the initial debris as possible.