Last Friday night (1/20/12) we had a couple of inches of snow in a short time. The next morning was very sunny & bright. I was interested to see how fast the sun would penetrate the snow and begin heating up the panels. About two hours after sunrise, several of the panels started shedding their snow. You can see here in this snapshot of a portion of our solar array the difference in performance by the snow covered vs cleared off panels.
One of the panels is generating 260 watts while the snow covered panel right next to it is only at 59 watts. Within about one hour, all of the snow had completely melted and all the panels were at full strength.
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Thanks for the post. At our off the grid place on Lake Superior we have 12 panels (2 KW) mounted on two poles. Sometimes when we get a sticky snow followed by heavy snow we get a buildup of several inches. A nice avantage of poles is that we can reach up with a long broom and clear them. But all we wouild really need to do is clear off a small section to let some sun in and within a half hour the snow slides off. Of course winter being what it is up there we usually brush them off all the way so we can run the dishwasher or charge the batteries after a couple of sunless days.
Cheers.
Wow John … that is pretty impressive to be off the grid!
I can only imagine how much snow must come down up there. We have been pretty lucky around here this year with such a mild winter.
Wow, thank you for sharing this data.
That’s a shocking difference of 200 watts between two adjacent panels (no pun intended). There appears to be another set of panels in the lower left that have a difference of over 217 watts. Very cool image, thanks for sharing.
roofrake.com carries soft roof rakes that can be used to take snow off solar panels. They can be used up to 41′ in length. They were very helpful in getting me the right length for my needs. And the head is soft on all sides so i don’t have to worry about it coming down crooked and damaging the panels. It can also push or pull snow so it’s very efficient at getting the snow off the panels.