Solar panel repair and maintenance in Ottawa

A service visit covers the whole system, from the glass to the inverter. These are the parts we work on, the same ones we design and build on every new solar panel installation in Ottawa.

Rain does most of the cleaning. One panel maker's installation manual, Canadian Solar's, says modules tilted at 15° or more generally may not need cleaning, because rain has a self-cleaning effect.

Panels also last. The U.S. Department of Energy puts the average working life of a solar panel at 25 to 35 years as of 2025, up from about 20 years in 2007. An NREL review of nearly 2,000 field measurements found that panels lose a median of 0.5% of their output a year.

So the upkeep is light: the periodic check of wiring and supports that the panel makers ask for, snow cleared with care in winter, and a visit when the roof needs work or the year's production reads lower than it should.

Your own production figures tell you most of what a visit would. Natural Resources Canada puts Ottawa's output at about 1,200 kWh a year for each kW of panels facing south at latitude tilt, with system losses already counted. Multiply your system's size in kW by 1,200, then compare it with the yearly total your inverter or monitoring app reports.

Allow for the roof. Panels facing east or west, or lying flat, make less: flat panels in Ottawa come to 977 kWh per kW a year on NRCan's figures. Allow for the seasons too. An Ottawa December gives about 62 kWh per kW against 125 in July, so judge a whole year, never one winter month.

If your year still comes in well under those figures, call (613) 869-8254 and we will look at the panels, the wiring and the inverter to find out why.

Most of the time, the panels are best left alone. When they do need cleaning, Canadian Solar's manual asks for water and a soft, non-abrasive sponge in the cool part of the day. It says never to scrape or rub away dry dirt, which leaves micro-scratches on the glass.

The same manual asks for the circuit to be disconnected before cleaning, and for electrical or mechanical maintenance to be done by qualified people only. On a roof, that is a job for a solar contractor.

Snow is the Ottawa question. The manual says to remove it with a soft brush, and Natural Resources Canada notes that panels at 15° or less shed snow less well. A ground mount keeps the array within reach from the ground. Our guide to solar panels in winter has Ottawa's output month by month and how panels handle snow.

Work on a solar system's wiring, inverters or connections is electrical work. Ontario's Electrical Safety Code requires almost all electrical work to be reported to the Electrical Safety Authority with a notification of work, ESA's word for an electrical permit, filed before the work starts.

KAJK is licensed, and as the installer we file the ESA notification and request the inspection. ESA also notes that a building permit is a separate thing, and that a project can need both.

Ontario's microFIT program opened on 2009-10-01 with 20-year contracts, so the first ones run out no earlier than late 2029. The IESO points owners of small generators to net metering with their local distribution company, which keeps the same panels working and credits the power they send to the grid.

With panels lasting 25 to 35 years on the Department of Energy's figure, a microFIT array can have years of production left when its contract ends. A service visit before the switch is a good time to look over the inverter, the wiring and the supports. Our guide to net metering in Ontario covers the switch itself.

On the business and industrial systems we build, maintenance is part of the scope from the start: we test each system at commissioning, and maintenance stays with us after it. That covers rooftop arrays, parking canopies and ground mounts. The details are on our commercial and industrial solar page.