If you’ve installed solar panels to lower your electricity bills and fight climate change, you’ll probably be looking for ways to maximize your electricity production and lower your electricity usage all year long.
Installers will say, don’t worry about the winter months and snow because with net metering, your panels will build up enough credits in the summer to take care of the winter months. And some sunlight will penetrate through the snow.
After a snow storm, snow doesn’t stick to panels for long. The dark silicone cells of solar panels are designed to absorb heat from sunlight. Once any portion of a panel is exposed to the sun, a small amount of heat spreads throughout the panel and melts the snow and it will start sliding off. The foam “brush” can help speed up this process by exposing some of the panel to the sun.
But who wants to waste the power of the sun even on a cold winter’s day? If your panels are within reach you can certainly try to get the snow off – just be safe and careful. You don’t want to damage your solar panels.
I recommend this soft foam brush made for taking snow off cars without scratching. It’s rigid and can push or pull snow. I just ordered the head because I already had a pole but you can order these with 12, 18 or 24-foot extension poles.
My solar panels are on the roof of my garage and I can reach the without too much difficulty although getting up on an eight-foot ladder makes it easier to see what I’m doing and to reach the top panels.
On my roof, I have to put the ladder close to the roof line and step up to one of the top steps. Be careful as the ladder might not be stable in the snow and might be slippery with ice.
Since I pull down all the snow off the roof, it collects in front of the garage door. When the snow is not too deep I use an electric snowblower so I can use some of that clean, fossil fuel-free energy produced by the solar panels.
This little electric “shovel” tosses snow farther than you might think. The only drawback with it is the size of the 12-inch wide opening. A battery version is handy but I just use a corded one. Corded tools are less convenient but they deliver a lot of power and are less expensive than battery snow shovels. Batteries are sometimes as expensive as the tool itself.
By the way, if you go with corded electric yard tools, be sure to get a heavy-duty cord rated for the power of the tool you are using.
For the next step up in a snowstorm, I turn to a full-sized corded electric snow blower. You really don’t want to be messing around with batteries in the cold. They end up not holding a charge as much as they would in warmer weather and they might run out in the middle of your snow-clearing job. Better to just deal with a cord.
The best thing about these electric snowblowers is the lower noise level and there is no gas and oil to mix. They also start up instantly unlike many gas-powered snowblowers. No spark plugs, no oil changes, no fumes, no mess and they are much lighter than gas-powered snowblowers and easier to operate – they don’t need as much muscle power.
Now for real Nor’easter type storms, I pull out the gas snowblower that my neighbor sold me. This thing is known as “The Beast” in the neighborhood. It’s noisy, heavy, and feels like a tank but it does plow through deep snow. Just don’t forget the earplugs.
Now after snow blowing I still sometimes get an impenetrable build-up of ice and snow in front of the garage around the roof line. I can’t really use salt to melt it because we have a gravel driveway. But this year I’m going to try some of these melting mats to keep that hump from forming in front of the garage door. Why not since I’m generating all of that solar energy?