Prompt snow cleaning is a must for solar systems O&M

With the arrival of Winter Solstice in North Hemisphere, many regions encountered heavy snow weather. The solar panels are covered with snow and need to be cleaned up urgently.

In view of the areas with frequent snowfall in high-latitude regions, it is suggested that the inclination angle of the solar modules should be larger, and the snow will slide down to a certain level, which will reduce the accumulation degree of snow. During installation, a certain distance is maintained between the bottom end of the module and the ground surface, and the snow will slide and accumulate at the bottom end, and will not accumulate to the components later.

If there is thick snow accumulated on the solar modules after snow, it is necessary to clean them. Soft objects can be used to take the snow down, and try to avoid scratching the tempered glass. Although solar module can take a certain amount of mechanical loadings, it can't be cleaned with people standing on it because the overloading will lead to cracks or damage of the module and shorten its lifetime. It is generally suggested that it is not necessary to wait for the snow to be too thick, so to prevent the modules from freezing.

If there is only a small piece of snow, it is also necessary to clean it up. Even a small blocked area of the panel will fail the generation capacity of the panel, resulting in a significant reduction in the efficiency of power generation.

Attention to Snow Removal of Photovoltaic Power Station

l  Pay attention to the use of soft objects to avoid scratching the glass and reduce the light transmittance of the tempered glass on the module;

l  Do not use boiling/hot water to flush the surface of the solar panel. Uneven heat and cold will seriously damage the surface material of the solar panel;

l  Pay attention not to step on top of the modules when cleaning. There are certain load regulations for the modules, which may lead to cracks or damage of the modules and shorten the lifetime of the modules;

l  Do not wait for the snow to be too thick before cleaning, in order to prevent the components from freezing;

Ways to Clean Up Snow

l  Mop

        Use soft cloth mop to wipe snow down. It is convenient and cost-effective.

        But note: do not use sharp sides of the mop to avoid scratching the laminated glass.

l  Cover with cloth or bag

        Small and medium-sized roof top solar system can also be covered with cloth or packaging bags before heavy         snowfall or storm, and can be unpacked when the snow stops.

l  Intelligent robot snow removal

        Large and medium-sized solar farms can use AI cleaning robots to clean the snow.

Statistics show that on average snow will cause more than 5% of the power generation degradation for a solar system. In addition to improving the utilization rate of natural light and improving the power generation efficiency of modules, the on-time snow cleaning of solar modules can also prevent the hot spot effect.

Comparing to single-glass modules which must have aluminum frames and the frames held back the snow, Raytech double-glass modules offer frameless design which made the snow slip off from panels automatically. The design effectively help to save the O&M cost and increase the power generation capacity.