How to Prepare Solar Panels for Winter
Let’s start with the good news: solar panels can continue to generate power throughout the winter, even when temperatures do drop. (If you’ve purchased solar panels for your home and live somewhere with cold winters, you probably already know about this.) But the less convenient news is that if your area is also prone to snow and ice, there is little to do. maintenance and preparatory work to maintain their performance.
Fortunately, there are a few things you can do now to keep your solar panels running as smoothly as possible during the colder months. In an article for CNET, Erin Gobler explains how to get solar panels ready for winter and keep them in good working order for the rest of the season. Here’s what you need to know.
Change the angle of the panels
Before we go any further, just to remind you that before actually making any changes to your panels, you should run this with your solar panel supplier to make sure it is, in fact, your best winter option. months. They can also tell you how to adjust the angles if that’s not what you’ve done before.
Here’s Gobler to explain why solar panel tilt adjustment helps:
Since the sun is lower in winter than in summer, you want your panels to be at a steep angle during these months. As an added benefit, a steeper angle will not only help to capture more sunlight, but it will also help snow fall off your panels more easily.
Check your batteries
Most solar panels are not designed to operate in low temperatures, so Gobler recommends keeping outdoor batteries insulated or moving them indoors. If you prefer to insulate them outdoors, check them from time to time to make sure the temperatures are within the optimal range. (Contact your service provider or user manual for this information.)
You also need to keep an eye on the discharge level of your batteries, whether they are indoors or outdoors. Fully discharging batteries is not recommended, according to Gobler, and as such, “although some batteries may be suitable for 70% to 80% discharge levels, the recommended discharge rate is actually 50%.” (This is one more thing to check in the user manual.)
If there are certain days when you know that you will be using a lot of energy – for example, to prepare and / or hold a holiday gathering – Gobler says that you can invest in a backup generator (if you haven’t already) and save it conveniently, on just in case.
(Carefully) remove heavy snow
Light to moderate snow tends to slide off or melt on your solar panels (which Gobler points out is a bonus because it clears the panels in the process), but more snow can take some action.
“Solar panels covered in snow simply won’t capture sunlight in the same way,” she writes . “Also, heavy snowfall can put too much weight on your solar panels, putting stress on the anchor points.”
But be careful (and careful) when removing snow using a soft snow brush that won’t scratch the panels.
Pay extra attention to your energy use
While we should always pay attention and try to reduce the amount of energy we use, this is especially important for those who rely at least partially on solar energy. Aside from cooler temperatures and winter weather, we all get less sunshine this time of year, which means we get less energy from our solar panels.
So, as Gobler points out , this leaves you with the option to cut down on your energy use or be willing to pay bigger bills over the next few months. If you are looking for ways to reduce your energy costs , you may want to revisit some of the LifeHacker in the previous coverage of this topic .