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You probably already guessed it: March 2025 was an absolute star of a month in terms of sunshine in the Netherlands. According to Dutch meteorological agency KNMI March 2025 was the sunniest month of March in 60 years! With 247 hours, the month was even better than 2022, and of course much better than the long-term average for the month, which is 146 hours.
Record amounts of sunlight in March 2025 (source:KNMI)
Lovely to have all that sunshine, almost every single day. Most days the sky was bright blue without a wisp of cloud in the sky. A side effect of such cloudless days is that it makes it easy to predict what the yield of solar panels will be throughout the country at any given time during the day. This has an impact on the 'imbalance trade', because imbalance on the grid occurs when prediction and reality are out of sync. The bright skies of March resulted in little imbalance and therefore lower income for those who trade with home batteries on the imbalance market. While bright blue skies are good for solar panels, variable weather is better for the imbalance trade.
New solar panels underneath a clear blue sky
In addition to being sunny, the month was also very dry: hardly any rain fell on the panels. What did fall however was sand blown over from the Sahara: that can mean that your panels are now covered with a thin layer of dust. Normally, that dust washes off again when it rains, but for that to happen it has, of course, to rain. Unfortunately, it will remain dry for a while according to KNMI.
If you want to clean the panels, our advice is always not to use any cleaning products, just water, preferably distilled or rainwater so that it doesn't leave calcium deposits. And only clean with a soft sponge! But we never recommend cleaning the panels yourself, in part because it can be dangerous to go onto the roof. There are several professional companies that offer solar panel cleaning. You could consider hiring one of these parties, or you can of course just wait for the next rain shower. Undoubtedly we’ll get some rain in April.
However, the coming days still look very sunny. Which is rather nice after the dramatic months of last year. This way you can rest assured that your investment in solar panels was the right choice, and you can prepare for even longer days with even more sun in the coming months.
