Clean panels in summer, clear snow in winter.
Anything on the glass cuts what a panel makes. Our drone washes off dust with deionized water. In winter it blows fresh snow off and puts no water on a freezing panel. Every job comes with before-and-after photos.
Opening for commercial work in the first quarter of 2027.
Why a drone
The array at our own farm in Ghent is big enough that keeping it clean is a real job. I set out to do it with a drone instead of a brush and a long afternoon. It is the same job we would fly for your array, on the same T100 that handles field application. We'll quote an array of any size, from a few rows by the barn to a solar farm, and say plainly how long a wash would take.
An inspection before a wash
Not sure the panels need it?
Start with an inspection. It shows which rows are dirty, and which have a fault a wash won't fix. Solar Inspection
What's on the panel decides how we clear it
Dust: a deionized water wash
We wash the array with deionized water from the T100's tank, in overlapping passes, so it dries without mineral spots. Where your panel maker allows a mild cleaner and the ground under the array can take it, we add a little and rinse it off after. It is the warm-weather job, for pollen and dust. It needs mild weather, well above freezing. Before the first wash, we go through your panel maker's cleaning guidance with you, for water, pressure, temperature and timing, and tell you plainly if a drone wash doesn't fit it.
Snow: blown off, no water
We fly low over the array, and the air pushed down by the rotors blows the snow off. Once the cover breaks up, the panel's tilt usually sheds the rest.
We don't spray water below freezing. On a frozen panel it turns to a sheet of ice, which is worse than the snow.
Which snow comes off
Dry, fresh snow lifts off. Wet, heavy snow doesn't, and neither does snow that has melted and refrozen into a crust or ice. More passes won't change that. We'll tell you which you've got before we fly, rather than bill you for a pass that can't work.
The time to clear it is right after the snow stops, before it thaws and freezes again.
What snow costs you
Dust costs you part of a panel's output. Snow costs nearly all of it, because a covered panel makes almost nothing. Every day an array sits under snow is a day's power lost.
What a cleaning gets you
What you get
| The record | Which array, the date, how it was cleaned, water used, area covered, and before-and-after photos |
| How it reaches you | An email tells you when the record is ready. It is kept with the array's previous cleanings. |
| Positioning | RTK GPS to within a few centimeters, with radar and LiDAR to keep clear of obstacles |
| How it flies | We launch it at your array. It flies a set plan on its own, or we fly it by hand. |
| At the site | We bring the water for a wash. We follow your site's access and safety rules around live electrical equipment. |