What Happens to a Solar System in Bad Weather?
Sun Volt Solar Blog
I have good customers, they ask good questions. One such questionasked of my lately has been “what happens to my solar system when itsnows?” Since I have both a solar thermal system and a photovoltaicsystem on my house, I can tell them. Enough sunlight gets through thesnow that the panels begin to heat up. This, in turn, causes the snowto slide off. Here is a picture of a ground mounted system afterreceiving over two feet of snow:
It helps that the panels are tilted to 40 degrees, roof mountedsystems likely will not shed snow like this. Still, on a roof mountedsystem, the snow will melt off, it might take a little longer. Theonly system I would be careful of in this climate would be an evacuatedtube collector. Because the tubes have a vacuum, no heat is transferedto the glass envelope, which is really good for collecting heat, butnot so good for melting accumulated snow off the collector.
