Maintenance requirements

GEOLUX® is a specialist engineered material with a 30-year service life, designed to increase the bifacial energy yield through increasing the front and rear-incident irradiance by increasing the natural albedo of the ground. GEOLUX can increase the ground albedo to approximately 75%, offering significant increases in yield and a reduction in the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE). One common question is whether GEOLUX will require any maintenance to continue to provide a high albedo increase over the life of the project.

How do you clean GEOLUX?

It is inevitable that after exposure to the elements, dirt will begin to accumulate on GEOLUX. The rate of accumulation will be dependent on the local site factors. The benefit of GEOLUX being a monolithic and smooth engineered material is that it is easy to clean, there are no individual fibres that can become stained. As such, with the right cleaning technique GEOLUX can be brought back to “brand new” condition if necessary.

Trials have been undertaken and in wet climates where there is significant vegetative growth and muddy topsoil, the best results have been obtained using a pressure washer. Karcher, though other manufactures will likely have similar, provide an HDS Trailer that can easily clean heavily soiled GEOLUX. If cleaning more regularly this would stretch significantly further.

In dry and arid regions, where there could be an accumulation of dust and sand, cleaning can be undertaken using blowers or simple sweeping as the smooth nature of GEOLUX ensures that no sand will be trapped on the surface.

How often do you clean GEOLUX?

A frequent question involves the understanding of how often GEOLUX needs to be cleaned. In the solar industry, frequent cleaning of the solar panels is essential to maintain optimum productivity. This approach, however, does not transfer to the cleaning of GEOLUX. What we are finding through site trials is that although soiling will occur, it is not having a significant impact on the bifacial gains, and when left to soil the increased yield is still offering a reduction in the LCOE. The following are results from a small trial in France, whereby it shows no noticeable loss in bifacial gain after 6 months.

A second trial that has been underway for several years shows GEOLUX that has sat in a field that has been subjected to very poor weather conditions including multiple 100-year storms. 

GEOLUX was installed in three phases; phase 1 directly beath the solar panels, phase 2 an additional 1.5 m at the heel, and phase 3 increasing the heel to 2.75 m. Evidently the material has become soiled, but what is interesting is that when compared to the baseline, the soiled GEOLUX is still performing well and generating an increase in yield.

BEFORE: 3 years without cleaning

AFTER: Cleaned with pressure washer

GEOLUX maintenance benefits

One often overlooked benefit is that GEOLUX will prevent the growth of weeds beneath the solar panels. This is an often difficult location to maintain, and if allowed to grow can create a fire risk, will reduce the bifacial gain, and could eventually grow to the point that it shades the panels. It is important and expensive to maintain this area of ground, and depending on the geography may need to be attended to many times throughout the year.

GEOLUX will offer a significant reduction on the annual weed maintenance budget whilst offering an increase in bifacial gain, thus even if GEOLUX is allowed to soil heavily it will still offer a net positive to the annual performance and again help to reduce the LCOE.