Solar Panel snow removal made easy

[Northernchateau]

For those that live in places like me that gets snow, I thought I would share how I clean the snow off of mine.
Buy yourself a Snow Brum( link posted below) . Take the handle comes off and it has the same thread as a paint roller so I just attached mine to an telescoping paint roller pole you can get in various lengths at Home Depot.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010MFYL02/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

 

[timselectric]

This is what I'm looking at getting.

Avalanche! Snow Roof Rake Premium 1000 Package: Easy Snow Removal Combining Complete Original 500 with Rake Head with Wheels and Adapter for Easy Conversion for Better Access to Valleys https://a.co/d/8Zt8PLc

 

[Northernchateau]

This is what I'm looking at getting.

Avalanche! Snow Roof Rake Premium 1000 Package: Easy Snow Removal Combining Complete Original 500 with Rake Head with Wheels and Adapter for Easy Conversion for Better Access to Valleys https://a.co/d/8Zt8PLc

I have owned and used an Avalanche for many years. Actually I just got a new one as the slip n slide finally ripped on the metal roof edge.
It works great and if your panels are laid over more then mine and you get over say 4-6" it's a good choice.
The big difference is the snow brum worked better today when we only got a few inches of wet snow. The soft edge does a great job as you can see in the pic. The Avalanche has plastic wheels so it can leave a layer of snow.

 

[timselectric]

I figured that I would flip the brum over for the final pass.

 

[wtrey613]

For those that live in places like me that gets snow, I thought I would share how I clean the snow off of mine.
Buy yourself a Snow Brum( link posted below) . Take the handle comes off and it has the same thread as a paint roller so I just attached mine to an telescoping paint roller pole you can get in various lengths at Home Depot.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B010MFYL02/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

View attachment 120534

Question, What angle do you have your solar panels at? from the image they look nearly vertical? Also with out getting into specifics, what region are you in??
we have 8 x 300 watt panels at 30 degrees in western NY. they are mounted on our roof. My uncle wants to create a steeper angle to mitigate the snow build up on the panels. My question for you is, what angle do you have yours at? and does the angle allow for less/none snow build up?? also would love to get a photo of how you mounted these panels.

 

[Hogheavenfarm]

30 degrees from horizontal? Or 30 degrees from vertical? Quite a bit difference. Mine are 31 degrees off vertical, so 59 degrees from horizontal. I agree those panels look pretty steep, maybe its just the angle of the photo.

 

[wtrey613]

30 degrees from horizontal? Or 30 degrees from vertical? Quite a bit difference. Mine are 31 degrees off vertical, so 59 degrees from horizontal. I agree those panels look pretty steep, maybe its just the angle of the photo.

30 degrees from horizontal. actally its more like 26 degrees from our roof pitch. My uncle and i were going back and forth. He says we wouldnt have to clean off snow if we had the panels more vertical (70-90 degrees from horizontal.). I think that, even if we get them to 70 degrees or even 80 degrees, we will still get ice, snow etc and we will still have to clean them off.

Most of our issues stem from the cabin being an off grid hunting cabin that we arent there all the time. SO we dont have the heat on to keep the batteries above 32degrees F. So we connected water tank heater to turn on and heat the battery. But if we get 1' of snow and clouds for 5 or more days, and no one to wipe the snow off the panels, the batteries will drain, drop below freezing, and were fucked.

I think our best solution after looking through NorthernChateau post, is mount 2 x 400 watt Panels directly vertically on the side of our Cabin, then with a PV combiner box, have a toggle switch to turn them on, and turn off our Roof mount. that way, when we are away, we just have 800 watts going to our 10k batteries with our growwatt on standby.

 

[Hogheavenfarm]

".. I think our best solution after looking through NorthernChateau post, is mount 2 x 400 watt Panels directly vertically on the side of our Cabin, then with a PV combiner box, have a toggle switch to turn them on, and turn off our Roof mount. that way, when we are away, we just have 800 watts going to our 10k batteries with our growwatt on standby."
Seems like a viable solution, snow reflection should help as long as they don't get buried.

 

[Northernchateau]

Question, What angle do you have your solar panels at? from the image they look nearly vertical? Also with out getting into specifics, what region are you in??
we have 8 x 300 watt panels at 30 degrees in western NY. they are mounted on our roof. My uncle wants to create a steeper angle to mitigate the snow build up on the panels. My question for you is, what angle do you have yours at? and does the angle allow for less/none snow build up?? also would love to get a photo of how you mounted these panels.

Presently they are 70 degrees off horizontal. Snow removal so far is been very easy. Being i live on the Tug Hill Plateau we usually get alot of snow so I wanted something to get them clean faster. Tomorrow I will take some pics of the back and sides. It's really pretty simple and adjustable.
BTW the snow still does stick but comes off pretty easy.

 

[Northernchateau]

".. I think our best solution after looking through NorthernChateau post, is mount 2 x 400 watt Panels directly vertically on the side of our Cabin, then with a PV combiner box, have a toggle switch to turn them on, and turn off our Roof mount. that way, when we are away, we just have 800 watts going to our 10k batteries with our growwatt on standby."
Seems like a viable solution, snow reflection should help as long as they don't get buried.

Next snow I will take a pic of all my panels. The vertical one on the wall is under a 18" overhang and stays almost snow free.
If you have a cabin and your not there all the time I highly recommend that mounting arrangement.

 

[Northernchateau]

DYI Solar Panel Mounting. All lumber is pressure treated and screwed down to the roof.
The panels are completely adjustable but for now I have them fixed for winter as I ran out of time.
In the spring I will change the uprights out for something that lets me adjust the angle tool free.
This weekend I need to zip tie the wiring. I started out with a 6panels / 3s2p configuration on these than switched to 8 panels / 2s4p so I could over panel by 16%

 

[Zoomyn]

Avalanche snow tool is serious work, one has to cut all or nothing as there is no scrape just the top off to make it light work that takes longer... and its wheeled so another tool would be required to get lower than the wheels' axle cutting bar... that said it makes a satisfying whomp-whomp sound as tons of deep snow slide down the slick plastic cape & hit the ground : )

 

[Hogheavenfarm]

Similar home grown setup here

 

[wtrey613]

So i have a laundry list of questions for you.
The panels at 70 degrees above horizontal, when you say the snow removal is easy, you mean, you manually have to go up there and clean. our issue is that no one is at our Cabin from Dec-Mid march and we are subject to snow storms, (not as bad as tug Hill) but pretty bad. Last year we had a foot of snow on our 27 degree panels and it didnt slide/melt off so our batteries were subject to running low.
What is the maximum amount of snow youve had on the 70 degree panels at once? and if you didnt touch it, how long would it take to melt off?

We have a growatt 5000 ES with only 2 x 5k EG4 batteries. Our panels are used 300 Watt 8S1P. (previously we had 4s2P but voltage was too low). Our system works great up until the later October/early November. and we still need it through December for Hunting purposes.
I also wanted to ask, would buying another 5k battery help for any case? I feel like we dont get enough sun to charge up an additional battery during Nov-Dec. Right now our battery charge is 50-80% during that time, never >90. SO I am struggling to see the benefit of buying another $1600 battery.

Option A. Would be mounting 4 panels near vertical on the side of our cabin to catch the Winter sun (Placement below 2 windows on the right side) and avoid snow. I so for the Nov-March, we just use a combiner box and toggle OFF the roof panels, and Toggle ON the Vertical panels. Is there any caveat to this idea? This would be under the assumption that minimal snow will stick to the vertical panels and it would maintain the battery charge throughout the winter months.

Option B. if the mounts you have at 70 degrees on top of your roof Melt snow easily (Without you to clean them), then I want to go with that option. But again, we are not there to clean off the panels if we get heavy snow fall. the snow would have to melt off the panels by at least day 3.

Keep in mind our growatt is on standby during the times we are not there, so its only running during the day when there is sun to trip the growatt on. We found that the growatt just eats up battery with the inverter to just run through out the day.

Lastly, could you speak on what you said about over paneling? We could also explore a third option of buying another 8 panels but roof mounting them right next to our other 8, so 8s2P. but again, it wouldnt solve our winter snow issue. Unless you think differently.

Thanks in advance, really appreciate it.

 

[SparkyJJO]

My panels are on my 2nd story roof.

I suspect when it snows I'm just going to have to wait for the sun to do its work.

At least I don't have to rely on the solar. Just would stink when the sun is out and I can't really use it.

 

[Bobert]

So i have a laundry list of questions for you.
The panels at 70 degrees above horizontal, when you say the snow removal is easy, you mean, you manually have to go up there and clean. our issue is that no one is at our Cabin from Dec-Mid march and we are subject to snow storms, (not as bad as tug Hill) but pretty bad. Last year we had a foot of snow on our 27 degree panels and it didnt slide/melt off so our batteries were subject to running low.
What is the maximum amount of snow youve had on the 70 degree panels at once? and if you didnt touch it, how long would it take to melt off?

We have a growatt 5000 ES with only 2 x 5k EG4 batteries. Our panels are used 300 Watt 8S1P. (previously we had 4s2P but voltage was too low). Our system works great up until the later October/early November. and we still need it through December for Hunting purposes.
I also wanted to ask, would buying another 5k battery help for any case? I feel like we dont get enough sun to charge up an additional battery during Nov-Dec. Right now our battery charge is 50-80% during that time, never >90. SO I am struggling to see the benefit of buying another $1600 battery.

Option A. Would be mounting 4 panels near vertical on the side of our cabin to catch the Winter sun (Placement below 2 windows on the right side) and avoid snow. I so for the Nov-March, we just use a combiner box and toggle OFF the roof panels, and Toggle ON the Vertical panels. Is there any caveat to this idea? This would be under the assumption that minimal snow will stick to the vertical panels and it would maintain the battery charge throughout the winter months.

Option B. if the mounts you have at 70 degrees on top of your roof Melt snow easily (Without you to clean them), then I want to go with that option. But again, we are not there to clean off the panels if we get heavy snow fall. the snow would have to melt off the panels by at least day 3.

Keep in mind our growatt is on standby during the times we are not there, so its only running during the day when there is sun to trip the growatt on. We found that the growatt just eats up battery with the inverter to just run through out the day.

Lastly, could you speak on what you said about over paneling? We could also explore a third option of buying another 8 panels but roof mounting them right next to our other 8, so 8s2P. but again, it wouldnt solve our winter snow issue. Unless you think differently.

Thanks in advance, really appreciate it.

One possibility you could do for practical use as a camp is to setup a separate 12v system for running your lights and potentially water and the charging of electronic devices. Every hour you don’t have the inverter on you gain 50ish watts of power. That doesn’t sound like much but on a cloudy day in winter when %10 of rated output is pretty good incoming power 3 hours of inverter time will eliminate one hour of solar. I don’t know if that is practical for your situation or not. I use an AIO (not a growatt) and my unit will charge my batteries from solar when it is turned off. When it is off I have 0 power consumption from the batteries. I use 12 volts for all of my essential living items and 120 for most of the nice to have items. A 12 volt power supply can be accomplished several ways

A buck converter. You can create 12v off of your 48v or 24v batteries.

Advantages Simple setup inexpensive
Disadvantages limited power (anything over 30 amps is exponentially more expensive and harder to find) Some efficiency loss
Some idle current draw.

A separate 12 volt battery.

Advantages : redundancy if the inverter system goes down you still have essential power. Essentially zero idle power consumption. High power output capability. Multiple charging options.

Disadvantages: More expensive. Noteworthy charging losses unless using solar and lifepo4.

This might not be a practical idea for you but if you can figure out how to reduce power loss to a minimum your solar setup will go a lot farther.

 

[DougfromdaUP]

I made my mounts capable of going all the way vertical. I found that even at 10 degrees from vertical snow will stick most all the time. Unfortunately I live in an area where I get lots of lake-effect snow, and clearing the panels would be a full time job some days.

 

[curiouscarbon]

wow! incredible amount of information in that image. it tells a whole story. thank you.

 

[timselectric]

I will have a vertical string in the next phase. But that won't be until next summer. So hopefully, I won't have much snow this year. But I have my snow rake ready if I do.

 

[Northernchateau]

So i have a laundry list of questions for you.
The panels at 70 degrees above horizontal, when you say the snow removal is easy, you mean, you manually have to go up there and clean. our issue is that no one is at our Cabin from Dec-Mid march and we are subject to snow storms, (not as bad as tug Hill) but pretty bad. Last year we had a foot of snow on our 27 degree panels and it didnt slide/melt off so our batteries were subject to running low.
What is the maximum amount of snow youve had on the 70 degree panels at once? and if you didnt touch it, how long would it take to melt off?

Easy meaning I can tap the panel or using my snowbrum it pulls off pretty easy. I am retired so I am here and if they get covered I clean them off.
The best way to keep a panel clean in my experience is mounting them on a wall under and over hang. Forget about output losses because of the angle for 2 reasons. 1 some panel output is way better then no panel output, and 2 cold panels output way better then hot panels.
It is snowing here now but pretty windy so nothing is sticking but I do have one wall mounted panel which is under a 18" overhang that normally stays very clean. Next time it snows and the 70 deg panels get covered I will take a pic and maybe do a short video.