Solar Panel Cleaning in Hillsboro, OR

Solar panels on Hillsboro homes and commercial buildings get cleaned by Clearly Amazing crews who work out of our Portland / Tigard office. The crews work with deionized water and soft brushes, and the products are eco-friendly. No pressure is applied, and no one on a crew stands on a panel.

Call (503) 255-2532 for a free on-site estimate.

A Hillsboro solar factory and its closure announcement

The Portland Tribune reported on January 12, 2021 that SunPower had announced on Thursday, January 7 that it “would close the 47-acre solar panel manufacturing facility and lay off 170 workers.” The story says the factory “was originally built in the 1990s after a $500 million investment from the Japanese semiconductor company Komatsu Silicon America,” and that “At its peak, SolarWorld was the largest solar panel material-producing company in the United States, employing more than 1,000 people.” It adds that SolarWorld AG filed for insolvency in Germany in 2017, that the plant employed only 250 people by late 2018, and that SunPower later bought the factory and began production.

That is the story of one Hillsboro factory. It is about making panels, not cleaning them, and the plant is not ours.

Solar on City buildings, and a SolSmart badge

The City’s page for the Cherry Lane Fire Station, Station 6, says it is “the first of our fire stations to be built to LEED Gold Standard, including a roof-mounted solar array,” and that it was dedicated in September 2010. SolSmart’s page for Hillsboro carries the badge “2017 SolSmart Gold” and lists installing solar on public facilities among the criteria achieved. Neither page says a word about cleaning or names our company.

What the City’s permitting pages say about installing solar

The Permitting Center’s page says that in 2011 the City Council “adopted an ordinance to waive permit and plan review fees associated with the installation of alternative green energy technology.” The Municipal Code’s section on alternative energy installations, codified through Ordinance 6511 in January 2026, says “Permits and inspections under all applicable specialty codes must accompany the installation of an alternative energy device” and adds “The installations are exempt from permit fees under those codes.” Both are about installing a system. Neither is about maintaining one.

Lot layout, building height and parking lots

Two of Hillsboro’s plan districts, South Hillsboro and Witch Hazel Village South, have a code section called Solar Access and Lot Orientation, whose stated purpose lists “the potential for installation of photovoltaic panels” among several goals. In South Hillsboro, lots for single detached dwellings, duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes that are less than 50 feet wide are to be oriented with the side lot lines “within plus or minus 20 degrees of geographical east-west.” The provision applies to Type II and Type III development, and it is silent on cleaning.

Elsewhere, the Community Development Code (Ordinance 6508 codification, November 2025) lists “Photovoltaic or solar equipment” among its building-height exceptions. For new surface parking lots of more than half an acre, one of its “Climate Action Elements” options is “Installation of solar panels with a generation capacity of at least ½ kilowatt per new off-street parking space.” Those are development rules, and they say nothing about cleaning.

Solarize Hillsboro and Cornelius

Energy Trust of Oregon announced on March 1, 2024 a Solarize campaign for Hillsboro and Cornelius, run in partnership with both cities and Solar Oregon, from March 1 through April 30. A workshop was listed for Thursday, April 4 at the Hillsboro Brookwood Library. The campaign was about going solar, and it was not about cleaning or about our company.

Two communities’ paragraphs on panels

The Reed’s Crossing declaration, recorded in Washington County in 2018, says its reviewer cannot “prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting solar energy systems” from being installed or used, and that its design guidelines and reviewer may impose location, orientation, size, placement and screening requirements on systems visible from outside the unit, provided they do not “materially impair the effective operation of the solar energy system.” That is a rule about installation and review, and it is silent on cleaning.

The Orenco Meadows declaration, recorded in 2005, says solar apparatus must be “screened from public view along the street right-of-way directly in front of the house” and cannot go up without prior written consent from the community’s Architectural Review Committee. A state statute also covers planned communities. Under ORS 94.778, in the 2023 edition, a declaration or bylaws provision of a planned community is “void and unenforceable” if it bars an owner from putting up or using solar panels “for obtaining solar access,” except as subsection (3) allows. Subsection (3) lets a homeowners association impose “reasonable size, placement or aesthetic requirements” on the panels described in subsection (1). Each community’s document is its own. How the statute applies to either one is not ours to say, and later editions are the associations’ to provide.

What the service includes

Arrays across Hillsboro

Solar arrays throughout Hillsboro are part of the work.

Hillsboro solar panel cleaning questions