Snow and Solar Panels, Part II

You may remember in early December my kvetching about how poorly* our solar panels worked when covered with snow.

Today I sat down and looked at our power production for December and January (this is our system's first winter) to get a clearer assessment of the good or bad of snow removal.

First, here's December:

You can probably tell on what days we removed snow from the panels -- and when the snow fell again. For the impaired: We cleaned snow from the panels on Dec. 8, late in the afternoon, and also on the 14th. Between that, you'll see three days of snow cover, followed by the end of the month when we just didn't have the gumption to get on the roof to clean things off at the end of the month.

And that's for good reason. The panels are on our second-story roof, which makes it ticklish to get up there even in fair weather, nevermind climbing through the snow to get there.

Now let's look at January:

On paper it looks like an even worse month than December. Again, we could have gotten up there to clear snow. But we had a lot of little snowstorms which would have meant cleaning the panels likely every other day through the first two-thirds of the month. We got to feeling in December that we needed to look at our production for a little while to see if getting up on the roof was worth the obvious safety concerns.

Let's look at the numbers:

For December, we generated about 62 kWh. Not spectacular. However, we were predicted to generate only about 146 kWh based on the length of the day and the position of the sun relative to our panels. So some loss, but not great.

For January, we generated about 79 kWh in a month in which it was predicted we'd generate 142 kWh. Better, but still not great.

For the last two billing cycles (our current cycle ended Jan. 9), we paid about $80 total for electricity. That's pretty good compared to the last two years without solar, when we paid an average of  $70.76 in December and $71.16 in January. If the panels were paid off, we'd be making bank. (Clearly, the goal is to get the panels paid off as quickly as we can.)

These comparisons would be easier to make if the billing cycles matched the months exactly, but who gets to understand electric company billing practices? Clearly we'll have to wait until the next cycle ends in early February (and the bill comes later) to get a clearer picture of the snow's impact on our production. Still, the numbers show snow does impact how much we end up paying each cycle.)

On the first day of February, we generated 10.74 kWh in a month wherein we're expected to generate 246 kWh. Given our average winters here, the worst of the major snowfalls is behind us. We'll see what happens, but I'm optimistic we'll hit that goal this month.

So is removing snow from the panels worth it? I'm gonna have to say it depends on your situation. If your panels can be reached mostly from the ground, the answer is probably yes. In our case, where the panels are on top of the second floor, I'm gonna say the risk outweighed the benefit.

*As in not at all.