Solar Panel Ideas

I’m always amazed when I see snow covered solar panels. Even some of of the ground mounted panels that are at a significant angle during the winter months often have snow clinging to them. In the case of the Culver home in the picture to the right, not only is there a reasonable angle on the panels that you would think would let the snow slide off, but you can see that the snow has melted off the rest of the roof around them. How is it staying on the black solar panels!?

So, I have a few ideas about this:

  1. Can some of the power generated be used for some minimal heat for the panels. I wouldn’t think it would take a lot to warm the surface enough that the snow doesn’t stick or that it slides off. Granted, this might require some power storage to handle that middle-of-of-the-night snow, but could it be done efficiently enough to offset the power loss from leaving them snow covered?
  2. Can the face of the panels be created with a non-stick surface like a new frying pan? Just slick it up a bit, so nothing sticks to it. That might help with dirt and debris as well. Every rain becomes a rinse cycle!
  3. Can someone come up with the equivalent of Solar Pam? Maybe Pam is the answer!? They make it for air fryers, grills, baking, etc. Maybe they need to run with this idea. “Spray your solar panels with Pam every Fall for a snow free winter!”
  4. Or do we go mechanical? The new installations have mechanisms where the panels follow the sun and in some farming applications the panels just go vertical to allow vehicle access through rows of panels. If 90 degrees isn’t enough, maybe they literally rotate to where the snow falls off. Or can we put the equivalent of a windshield wiper on them to squeegee them once or twice a day.

Someone is missing a good opportunity here. Maybe Elon is already working on this, but if he isn’t, he should be…

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