Feasibility of my using panels near Canada/US border, facing north

[Shplad]

Serious newbie here.

I have an Anker F2000 solar generator already. Until now, I'm just charging it using the AC outlet. Longer term, I'd love to be able to charge it using solar panels.

However, I live in an area not far from the border in Canada which sees very little sunlight, except in summer. To make matters worse, I also live in an apartment that faces north, with all windows facing north. And I have no authority to store or mount anything outside, so the panel(s) would have to be put up against my windows. I know this will likely result in very little power, but something is better than nothing.

Is there a way to test how much sunlight I can get from panels mounted against the windows? I thought I saw somewhere on the web some kind of meter that can measure how much sunlight-frequency light currently available.

Or am I pooched until I can move to some place that faces the right direction?

 

[Rednecktek]

Let's see... north facing, near Canada, inside a window? You should see jack and squat for watts. You've got the "Bad For Solar" trifecta there.

 

[Ampster]

An easy way to quantify that would be PVWatts. The location (Latitude 49N), 90 degree tilt, 0 degrees orientation. It needs a street address to use the correct weather data or I would have run it.

 

[E. Cho]

Solar Meter

FWIW, on an overcast day I often get 5-10% of the panels' potential. Could be similar for panels facing north, ie: no direct sun.

If you have a camera with some exposure controls, you could use a neutral gray card (or white card -2 stops), and take a meter reading off of it in sunshine and then take a meter reading off of the same card facing north and note the exposure difference in stops and do the math, with each stop down being ½ the light or u at double the light. It would at least tell you how much less light there is as a guide. Some smartphone camera apps have manual exposure readings too, but quite wide lenses and you want only 100% gray being read, no body shadows or stuff in the frame. Cheaper than the above meter for a 1 off use.

I would expect about a 4-5 stop difference at this time of year. So not much production. If we ever get a sunny day I'll try to remember doing the metering.

 

[Shplad]

Yeah, I figured I was going to have lousy luck with this.

Oh, if only I knew how to do that. I believe my camera is semi-automatic, and I know very little about photography/how to use it. It's an Olympus TG-5.
https://www.dpreview.com/products/olympus/compacts/olympus_tg5

Any idea if it will do that?