Wednesday 9 October 2019

Another Day, Another Snow

So, yesterday it snowed, or rather it kept snowing, which was interesting to say the least with regards to the solar panels.

So, since my solar panels are on the roof of Wanda, they are flat, meaning that snow builds up on top of them. 

This makes things interesting when trying to keep them clean and clear in winter. 

As the clearer and unobstructed they are, the more light they get, the more light they get, the more power goes into my batteries. 

So, yesterday morning, before heading off to work, this was what the panels looked like.
   

I went back at noon and swept them off and I got a bit better, but they were still not clean. 

Also the batteries were still at 71%, meaning that effectively no charge had gone into the batteries all morning.

Yesterday was overcast and lightly snowing all day, so there was no heat to melt the ice. So they looked like this after the noonday sweeping.
   

By the time I got home it had stopped snowing only an hour earlier, but still I went up and brushed them off as best I could.
   

It is interesting to note that by the time I got home the batteries were up to 100%.

This is one of the reasons that I put as much solar panels on the roof as I could and got bigger batteries. 

Even with their diminished capacity (due to the snow and overcast skies) I was still able to get a full charge during the afternoon.

We shall see how the saga of a solar charging system in winter goes, but for now, it is working, it just needs a bit of elbow grease now and again.

As always: Keep your head up your attitude positive, and keep moving forward!

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