Solar SCAMs

[Les burrows]

This video from Jordan is very much one you should take the time to watch if you have or are thinking of having Solar PV at you home
Les

 

[Gadget Geek]

That customer looks like he needs chicken wire around the panels to keep the pidgeons out.

A couple of years ago my panels stopped working and the company had gone bust years before. I managed to find a local solar tech who was brilliant. He found the acidic pidgeon poo had affected some of the connectors under the panels where they were roosting. For £500 he evicted the pidgeons, rewired all the panels, cleaned them and put chicken wire all around to stop them coming back.

 

[siteguru]

One of my near-neighbours has solar panels (2 sets of 8 on the roof, and 1 pair on his porch roof). The pair on the porch are unshielded, but the ones on the roof have angled side covers fitted. (I assume to help with wind deflection as well as keep birds out). His neighbour got solar panels fitted last week (1 set of 12 on the roof). I can't see any protection around the panels, but maybe I'm too far away to notice chicken wire.

 

[Gadget Geek]

There are a lot of solar PV installations here in Weston and I can tell which ones don't have the protection because they have flocks of pidgeons perched on the apex of the roof.

 

[BarryH]

Back in the day when I would survey homes for Solar PV and Solar Thermal, I would always point out to homeowners the potential damage to their savings/earnings caused by bird droppings. Just look at the houses near where you live and see the colour of the roof tiles near chimney stacks particularly where there are TV aerials for birds to perch.

If you have a Sky dish and or watch your TV using On-Demand Services, then perhaps you no longer use your TV aerial for off-air Terrestrial TV and could dispense with this bir magnet on your roof?

At the beginning of the year, I had 12 PV panels installed on my roof in three groups and made sure that they were fitted far away from the chimney stack and installed black mesh all around the perimeter of each group of panels as we have a lot of Pigeons in my area. The mesh prevents birds from getting under the panels and nesting which can damage the underside of the panels and along the top edge of the panel array I have purpose-made anti-bird spikes that stop birds from settling on the top of the panels to relieve themselves. A restricted airflow in hot weather allows the panels to unevenly heat up in full sun. A hot spot on one panel can potentially bring down the performance of the whole array since panels are connected in series (unless you have Micro Inverters on each panel or panel pair) and this has the same effect on the electricity flow from your solar panels as standing on a hose pipe or kinking a hosepie does on the flow or water. In fact, Bird Poop has the same effect which is why an annual cleaning of your panels can be so effective.

I'll be getting mine cleaned in the early spring, most likely by my window cleaner as many other people do for an extra £15 to £20. I wouldn't go for a so-called Solar Panel maintenance contract as they cost hundreds and will wipe not only your PV panels clean but also clean out any savings made through cleaning them as per the SCAM at the head of this thread.