5 ms·
It's not as bad as this. In climates where you will have a bed of snow during the winter months, your optimum tilt angle for a fixed solar panel is something l
by jws 4y ago
It's not as bad as this.
In climates where you will have a bed of snow during the winter months, your optimum tilt angle for a fixed solar panel is something like 30° off of vertical or steeper. I find that on mine the snow falls off since it is a south facing, steep, dark surface.
You engineer to make sure you have enough energy captured each month to meet that months needs. That might lead you to a tilting mount, or just a fixed angle and having surplus energy most months.
In my case, panels were much more expensive when I designed my system, I initially roof mounted them, but when replacing the roof under them I moved them to a pole and went with a tilting mount and manually move the panels twice a year. My load is much higher in the summer, but I still need some power in the winter. And northern winters can be cloudy a lot and have limited sun even on a clear day. At my location there is about a factor of 5 difference in solar energy per square meter per month. So you design for each month and then pick a solution that is best. In my case the summer load is so high that even though I get 5 times the energy, it is still the driving force on sizing the system.
- starlust2 4y agoThey are on a pole on your roof or you moved them to the ground?
- jws 4y agoI moved them to the ground. The roof pitch is about 1:1 and I’m not feeling like trying to stick to it any more. The pole puts everything at a comfortable working height.
- distances 4y agoInteresting. Last winter my parents' rooftop solar had zero output until April, as it produces nothing until all the panels are clear of snow. Granted their installation is at a fixed angle that matches the roof, and this is in the Nordics. During summer months the production mostly covers and partly exceeds their use, but the sell price is so much lower that it doesn't even begin to pay for the rest of the year. But that of course then relates to the installed capacity.
- xyzzyz 4y agoI wonder if it makes sense to build some simple resisting heating elements into the panels, to allow the snow to slide off. Shouldn’t use all that much energy to run it occasionally.
- dwiel 4y agoYou can actually push a bit if current backwards through the cell to heat it up. Some people have tried this but not sure about what prevents this from being more wide spread https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/03/18/heating-solar-panels-to-clear-snow/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/03/18/heating-solar-panels-...
- jonstewart 4y agoSo much of this discussion depends on where you are. In the US, a typical solar installation is on the pitched roof of a house. When the sun comes out, the dark roof and PV panels heat up, and the snow slides off. Rowhomes or apartment buildings in a city might have flat roofs with panels mounted on racks, but most US cities won't get enough snow often enough for this to be a problem.
- distances 4y agoMy parents do have a traditional pitched roof. Winter sun is not warm enough to warm up anything, even if dark, until late winter. Plus the color of course is white if it's covered in snow :) Yeah very much location dependant.