How Can I Tell If My Solar Panels Are Working?

Are my solar panels working properly ? You will understand about your solar panels while reading this article

Solar panels can last 25 years or more with proper use. Since they don’t have any moving parts and keep working silently, it’s hard to determine if they’re functioning properly. This article will explain how you can determine if your solar panels are working correctly.

My Solar Panels are Proper Working

Firstly, you should check up on your panels regularly. If any issues are detected early, they can be solved quickly, and you can return to an efficient green energy life. Modern solar panel systems have notifications and alerts to tell you if something is wrong. You can follow these five steps to ensure the correct working of your solar panel system.

Inspecting The Solar Inverter:

It’s quite common for an inverter not to work at all. This device converts direct current (DC) electricity (panels) to alternating current (AC) power (home). You should know that your panels aren’t working if your AC or DC inverter fails working.

Modern inverters are equipped with lights that tell the status of an inverter. A green light means everything is working well. An orange light indicates a potential issue with the inverter, while a flashing red light is your inverter telling you that something is seriously wrong with it.

The cause of these issues can be failed micro-inverters, component damage from squirrels, nesting birds, or raccoons, and faulty or overload wiring. If any issue is detected, you should reach out to a credible solar technician to fix that issue.

Examining The Electric Meter:

An electric meter is an essential device since it tracks your electricity consumption. Going solar means, you’ll rely less on the grid for your electricity needs. In the case of net metering, any excess electricity production will be routed back to the grid, where your meter will credit you for that extra electricity generation.

The best way to check if there’s anything wrong with your panels is to examine your electric meter on a bright, sunny day. If it’s showing more power being drawn from the grid, then there’s an issue with your panels.

A few solar installations come accompanied by a solar meter which measures the amount of electricity your photovoltaic (PV) panels produce and can help you review the condition of your panels.

You should look for the total kilowatt-hours of energy your panels have created. This will be an increasing number since your panels are active in the daytime. If that number isn’t increasing, something is wrong with your solar power system.

Reviewing The Electric Bill:

The main reason for installing solar panels is to reduce electricity bills. So, if your utility bills aren’t decreasing, you know that you are drawing power from the grid and that your panels aren’t working correctly.

Checking The Weather:

Your solar energy generation relies on the amount of sunshine in a day. Since not all days have the same sunshine, and weather can fluctuate daily along with the seasons of an area, you’ll likely see fluctuating solar energy generation. However, if your panels are performing poorly in the sunshine and bad weather, something is wrong with them.

Removing Obstacles:

Your electricity generation is lowered if sunlight is blocked, reducing efficiency. A little area of shade can affect the entire panel. This shade can be caused by any obstruction like dust, bird poop, tree branches, dirt, etc. You can clean your solar panels to avoid this or remove any obstructions causing a shade on the panel. Some ways to do this are:

• Deep cleaning your panels with water and soap once annually.
• Spraying the panels with water from a hose once monthly.
• Trimming overhanging tree branches once, yearly.

Solar Panels Not Working

You need to have a plan ready if your solar panels stop working or aren’t working properly. Before contacting a professional technician, you can do several checks to diagnose the issue:

• Checking the wiring and ensuring it’s in the right place and undamaged.
• Restarting the inverter.
• Check if any circuit breaker has tripped.

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If you don’t diagnose any issue, it’s best to contact a solar service professional to look at your system. They will troubleshoot the system or check for any faults and do any repairs if necessary.

A deep inspection of your panel will require a comprehensive investigation of the mounting hardware, solar cells, wiring, inverters, or any other equipment or technology. These technicians can also see your power production, vulnerabilities, address system, and many more.

Ensuring Correct Working

You deserve an optimal performance experience from your solar panels if you’ve bought them for their worth. But it’s a piece of technology, and it’s possible that something could go wrong with it. Issues can be verified with minor checkups of the system to see if anything noticeable comes up on the radar to explain the dips in performance.

It might be as easy as cleaning your panels or restarting the inverter to fix your panels, but sometimes that’s not enough to fix the problem. In such a case, it’s important to reach out to a professional solar technician to fix your system and get it back running in a short time.