Digging Out Your Solar Panels from the Snow: Time to Plan for the Spring Thaw

As the blizzard batters almost a third of the country, solar energy may not be the first thing on people’s mind. Our customers who install solar energy system in the Midwest are best staying out of harm’s way as the sun is not going to be casting its rays on solar panels in the US today. That is one of the oddities about solar energy: you need the sun to produce electricity. And when it is safe to go outside, probably the homeowners with solar panels on their roofs will be trying to sweep (please don’t shovel) the snow off their solar panels for two very good reasons. You don’t want all of the weight of the snow and the solar panels to collapse your roof. And you don’t get any juice from panels encapsulated by snow—or leaves, or dust or dirt. Keep the brooms handy year round.

It is times like these, when folks are losing their power that homeowners begin to think about other energy options. If you were without power, as my family was last week (no heat or electricity, but warm blankets), then you may covet a solar energy system with a backup system.  Many are surprised to hear that although you may have solar panels, you are not free of your utility company. It is one of the few times that we get questions about off grid systems or battery backups in metropolitan areas. You don’t hear of them very often, but we have sold a few of these applications.  You wouldn’t need a battery backup very often, but you don’t need a seatbelt very often either. 

Winter can be a quiet time for solar energy system installations around much of the country.  But even now we are hearing from DIYers and installers getting ready for the thaw of spring.  Now is a good time to design your home solar power system. The incentives are about as good as they are going to get and the cost of photovoltaic systems are still coming down. We are definitely at the mercy of the incentives. 

Homeowners don’t want to fork over $30,000 for a solar energy system just to save some money on their electric bill. Fortunately, there are still very good federal, state and local programs. Last year was not a good year for one major innovation, the PACE programs, but there are new financing and leasing programs that are becoming much more readily available.

The bottom line matters to almost all. Even with the incentives, our customers are interested in price. No doubt about it, our discount solar panels fare much better than our other panels.  The reason is that the discount solar panels that we sell, mainly Conergy, Canadian Solar, and Trina fare well in a comparison of quality of solar panels that we provide. We are of course mindful that each of these discount solar panels is made in China, regardless of what an occasional customer may tell us about Canadian Solar. In the final analysis, price matters to many of our customers.

We do get some customers are are interested in the origin of the panels. Canadian Solar is planning on manufacturing in Ontario, Canada, but for the time being, the Canadian Solar panels on the market today are from China. If you want something manufactured closer to home, then take a look at the Solon, Schuco and SolarWorld solar panels, of if you are looking for thin film modules, take a look at Uni-Solar. As you start digging out from the big storm, start thinking about design your solar energy systems for the spring.