Harmattan is a dry and dusty northeasterly trade wind which blows from the Sahara Desert over the West African subcontinent into the Gulf of Guinea between the end of November and the middle of March. (Wikepedia)
The effect is reduced visibility and a lot of dust. Everything is covered in a very fine layer of dust. You cars, your homes, skin, plants and solar panels.
The dust on your solar panels can reduce performance by up to 50%. What this means is that if you have 2000 watt in panels, the dust has reduced them to about 1000 watts. When you factor losses from cables, haze, the position of the sun, inverter or controller efficiency, that number drops to about 600 watts. Your 2000 watt in panels is now the equivalent of 600 watts. If you have an extra large array then it might not be as drastic. Most people barely have large enough an array.
Your batteries are not charging fast enough because your system is not producing enough current to charge them. Your are unhappy because you think you have been sold a dud. You are spending money running your generator to charge your batteries. Your neighbors are wondering why the man with solar is suddenly running his generator.
The solution is very simple. Clean the panels. Our batteries have been struggling to get past 25.3 all week. The first day after we cleaned our panels we saw 28 V (Batteries go through thee cycles. Bulk, Absorbtion and Float charge). We have only seen bulk over the last 5 days. Tomorrow we will see the absorbtion and the float cycle because of our clean panels.
Yesterday our technicians cleaned solar