Not seeing a good generation lately? And it makes sense because after Diwali, Delhi's air quality has deteriorated to the "severe" category as per Central Pollution Control Board. In addition to firecrackers, farm fires and stubble burning have also contributed to Delhi's PM2.5 pollution. The capital city of India has become a gas chamber.

On 4th November 2022, Delhi saw its worst AQI of the year at 450 AQI. This led the government officials to impose level 4 GRAP restrictions. Pollution in the atmosphere reduces 

. There are two main ways in which this effects: by absorbing and scattering the sun's rays and by soiling solar panels. Your solar panels will lose their efficiency as soon as they are out in the open, whether in clean air or not so clean air.

Mitigating air pollution is one way to improve solar power generation and can be done on a broader scale. However, on an individual basis what should be done by you to increase the generation of your solar plant? Well the answer is simple. You can keep them clean!!

According to a study, in heavily polluted regions particulate matter can cause a drop of more than 50 percent in photovoltaic power generation. But you don’t need to worry. You can just clean up your solar panels and increase the generation.

Solar generation ought to be poor because it’s November and post diwali week. Even though we thought the same, it's our everyday routine to monitor the performance of all our solar plants. And guess what we found out? We found that some systems are generating better than the others. At first, we thought it could be a shadow issue, or maybe something got disconnected or maybe the area has more smog than the others. So, at the beginning of the month we conducted a cleaning drive. We found eight of our 10 sites to be in very poor condition, with the panels extremely dirty and covered in pollutants.

After cleaning of those panels the very next day there was a 45% increase in the generation. We understand that the weather is bad but not cleaning the panels makes it worse. Your system has the potential to support all your consumption even during winters.

Cleaning your solar panels on a regular basis makes a huge difference. Depending on the amount of dirt and dust deposited on your solar panels, after cleaning the panels the efficiency of solar panels increases up to 50%.

Most solar plant owners have this assumption that the rainwater will automatically clean up the solar panels. However, unlike your car your solar panels also need to be cleaned on a regular basis and necessary after the first shower of rain.

If you don’t clean up your panels for a longer duration of time, the durability of your solar panels will reduce. Also, in the long run your solar panels may start developing hotspot defects.

The best part about cleaning your solar panels regularly is, you get an opportunity to inspect them as well.

You have made a lot of investment while installing solar panels. So it is necessary to ensure that the ROI of your solar plant does not exceed. Cleaning them regularly will maintain a good generation thus helping you to achieve your ROI early or on the scheduled time.

Do you want to achieve your ROI soon and reduce your payback period? 

 with us! We offer AMC services which include inspecting your modules for any kind of damage. We clean the modules once in a month, check the inverter and charge controller for correct settings. Check net meter charges by the DISCOM, inspect terminals and connections, check safety equipment. Monitoring your solar plant everyday.

Case Study

Is air pollution affecting solar generation?

School buildings are one of the most power-consuming buildings in the world. This is because of the number of appliances they have and most of them are switched on at the same time.

In normal schools, we have at least 4-5 tube lights of 40 watts and 4-5 ceiling fans of 75 watts in one classroom. They all run continuously for 5-6 hours. Doing a simple calculation can give us how much power all of these appliances consume.

Fan: 5 X 75 Watts X 6 hours = 2250 watts or 2.2 units

Tube light: 5 X 40 watts X 6 hours = 1200 watts or 1.2 units

So on average, 1 classroom consumes around 3.4 units of electricity. Now if we consider each class has at least 4 sections then we have 48 classes (12 X4) and the total power consumption of all those 48 classes in just one day will be around 163 units or 163 kWh of power.

So in 1 month, if school is open for 22 days those classes will be consuming around 3586 units of power.

If we consider the electricity rate as Rs. 10 per unit and schools run for 10 months then in 1 year those classes will consume electricity worth Rs. 3,58,600.

We haven't added the other classes like labs, library, canteens, etc. Let’s just say they add up to 10% of the total consumption of the school, which means the total [power consumption of the school will be 3944 units in a month and they will be paying a total of Rs. 3,94,400 per year on electricity

But most of the schools nowadays have 8 sections of the same class, which means this annual electricity cost will be around Rs. 8,00,000.

Note: This is just a rough calculation which can vary from school to school.

All of this can be avoided by the schools if they adopt solar.

Let’s have a look at how our client Bosco School is avoiding paying high electricity bills by adopting solar energy.


Bosco School was paying Rs. 63295 per month for their electricity. This means yearly they were paying more than 6 lakhs on their electricity(running 10 months a year).

That huge electricity bill was one of the major reasons why Bosco School contacted Sunson Energy.

They got a 50 KW solar on-grid solution that can be upgraded as per the demand. For this 50 kW solar solution, Sunson Energy used 108 units of 445 Wp JA Solar Panels and a String Inverter.

The school adopted solar with 50% capacity which means they are saving up to 4 lakhs per year. Earlier the usage was less because of covid. As the usage will increase, they will increase the size of the plant.

Challenges Bosco School faced while installing solar

The only problem the Bosco school faced is that when they adopted solar or get solar installed, that was the covid period, which means there were fewer students and staff in the school. So the power requirement was less. But now as covid restrictions are no longer applied and schools are running at full capacity, the schools have realized they need more solar energy.

The school is planning to expand another 25-30kW in order to meet the increased demand of electricity.

Now let's discuss what was the impact of this solar installation.

The power we consume ‌comes from the coal-based power plant, which means the power we consume is carbon-intensive. The process of producing power or electricity is full of carbon emissions. But Solar energy is clean which means there is no carbon emission in the process of power generation. So by adopting solar, the school is not only saving money but also helping the climate change.

If an educational institute whether it's a school or a college or a training center, installs solar energy, it affects the students positively..

Students not only get to know about new technology but they also get to know its benefits and how it can help climate change. That means now kids will know about climate change and after that, if they see any piece of news related to global warming or climate change, they will ‌understand it.

Not only that, but they will also make their parents aware of solar energy and there is a possibility that those parents will also try to get solar installed.

Students of Bosco School were called for a guided tour of the installation to make them understand the working. The goal was also to motivate the new generation to adopt renewable energy.

By showing that they have solar installed, schools can attract new admissions as solar is a good branding tool as well.

Not only this, by showing that one school has adopted solar, the solar developer can also get more schools on board as again it's a matter of admissions in the next season.

Commercial Solar Case Study : Bosco Public School,50kW

Electricity Bill before adopting solar: INR 20,000

Electricity Bill after adopting solar: INR 298


In the tier-1 and tier-2 cities, in the summers, power consumption rises. One of the biggest reasons is that now summers last longer than before and the temperature goes above 45+ degrees.

When the temperature is more than 45 degrees, it's hard to survive. So naturally, people use the air-conditioners. Though air conditioners do provide relief from the summer, they consume a lot of electricity, which is further reflected in the monthly electricity bill.

Seeing a 20K bill in tier-1 cities is very normal but just imagine, this 20K bill lasts for at least 8 months. This means in 1 year the consumer has to pay around INR 1,60,000. In 20 years this electricity bill will become some around INR 32,00,000.

This is an enormous amount. The reason we are taking 20 years into account is that your solar solution will give you electricity for 20 years.

The Solar panel used in the solar installation: 24 units of 460 Watts by 

Inverters used in the solar solution: IQ7 Micro-inverters by 

After the installation, we monitor the system for its efficiency. As we used the micro-inverters, it became very easy to monitor the power generation process of each solar panel individually.

After a few days, we found that one of the panels was not generating power properly. It was generating electricity less than the average.

We sent an engineer to check for any faults and on his inspection; he found that someone has put a piece of cloth on the panel and because of that solar panel could not generate the power.

If we wouldn't have used the microinverters, it wouldn't have been possible to track and resolve the issue. Ultimately leading to damage of solar panels.

Each solar panel is connected to a micro-inverter separately. All the solar energy from each panel is converted to AC and sent to the meter box through a shared line. This procedure ensures that no high voltage DC passes through the system.

In the case of mini solar inverters, however, it is typically about 98% or more. And it's easy to see why: it's essentially a one-panel, one-inverter system. In other words, if you have 15 solar panels, you'll need 15 micro-inverters. Each solar panel has its own solar inverter.

As a result, if one inverter or even one solar panel fails, it will not influence the overall power generation. Because each solar panel is equipped with a solar inverter, the conversion is maximized at the panel level.

In case of string inverters, if the inverter fails, the entire power generation is affected.

Any shadow effect or dust on the solar panel that prevents sunlight from reaching the inverter has impact on the entire string. This means that the entire power-producing system will be affected. However, in case of mini solar inverters, any difficulties will solely affect the power generation from that device.

Going ahead with solar energy was the best decision I made, along with choosing Sunson Energy. Sunson Energy has been more like a family rather than just any other solar installer. The

 of Sunson Energy was very amazing. They made sure I can understand solar energy, and they also helped me choose the right solar solution.

All the products were delivered on time. I am extremely happy and satisfied.

I saw a very drastic decline in my electricity bill after adopting solar energy. My original bill used to be around Rs. 22,000/month, but after adopting solar, it came down to zero.

Case Study

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Is air pollution affecting solar generation?

Commercial Solar Case Study : Bosco Public School,50kW

Residential Solar Case Study : Mr Varun,11kW

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