How it works, step by step
- Site visitAn engineer walks the plant with your O&M team, inspects the glass, photographs the soiling and identifies the contaminant: loose dust, cured cement, bird droppings, lichen, iron oxide or hard-water scale.
- Water testWe test the water you clean with and check it against your module maker's limits. Hard water leaves scale every time a rinse dries.
- BaselineWe choose test strings and matching control strings, and record their output under the same sun before any treatment.
- TreatmentWe clean the test strings with the method and Chemitek product that suit the contaminant: for example, Inorganic Removal Agent for cured cement, followed by Antistatic Solar Armor 2.0 so new dust bonds less strongly.
- MeasurementWe read treated and control strings in the same irradiance window, and record water use and cleaning time.
- Report and programmeYou get the measured results and a costed programme for the whole plant: method, interval, water treatment, equipment and products.
Why pilot first?
Every plant soils differently. The dust, the water, the tilt, the tracker and the cleaning method all change what works. In a published Northern Cape trial, a water-repelling coating increased dust soiling on the treated modules (du Plessis et al. 2020). The same product can help one plant and hurt another.
A pilot settles that on a few strings, with numbers from your own plant, before the whole site changes how it cleans.
If your crews already clean and you only want the products, you don’t need a pilot. Order just the products, and ask us for dilution advice whenever you want it.
What you get
| Deliverable | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Soiling and contaminant findings | What is on your glass, and how fast it builds up |
| Water test | Whether your cleaning water is safe to use as it is |
| Measured pilot result | The difference on your own strings, against controls |
| Costed programme | What a full Restore → Protect → Maintain plan would cost and return |
| Method statement | A washing procedure your O&M team can follow |
On very large plants, a pilot can grow into a full plant study: soiling measurement across the site, SCADA and performance-ratio analysis, cleaning economics and a costed programme.
What we need from you
- Plant size and layout, and the module make and series.
- How and how often you clean today, and where the water comes from.
- String, inverter or SCADA data, if you have it.
- Someone from your O&M team on the day.
What a pilot shows
The result depends on whether you have soiling or contamination. Your pilot measures what cleaning is worth on your plant, with your dust, your water and your strings.
The same design as published field trials. Chemitek’s case studies were set up the same way, with treated strings measured against controls under the same sun. At Green Energy Park in Morocco, five identical strings each ran on their own inverter, with an uncleaned string and a water-cleaned string as controls (case study). At an 850 kWp plant in Malaysia, an unwashed string served as the irradiance reference: see the Malaysia water-quality case.
