Snow covered panels partially

yankinlk

Silly question maybe but i have packed snow and ice laying on the bottom half of my panels on both east and west aspect. The bottom row is entirely covered both sides

I thought i would still get some generation but noticed that yesterday we had zero production. Is that to be expected untill it melts?

DayInTheBog

Snow is blocking light therefore no generation.

Will improve tomorrow with the thaw

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058387266/snow-covered-panels-partially

Were your panels the 'half-cut' type?

SD_DRACULA

Would have thought it should be something, mine were fully frozen & white the whole day yesterday (no snow) and still pumped 5kwh which I was surprised to see with no sun at all.

10-10-20

I'm looking at mine just now and they are frost-covered and only generating ~3w per panel. Maybe it's just insufficient photons at this hour!

yankinlk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123036361#Comment_123036361

🤭 I dont recall if that was ever mentioned. they are JA 345's 10 in the front West in 2 rows of 5 and 9 in the back East also 2 rows.

This is the front West facing roof - you can see there is fog and cloud so no light really…

this is the rear - 5 of 9 panels at least partially covered.

yankinlk

im asking becuase i have zero generation right now - and zero yesterday. on Tuesday I had plumbers in to replace hot water tank - but they never took power offline - so i dont think there is any reason to think they may have knocked it out.

Weather has been pretty consistently grey this week and ive only .1 for 3 days (Tuesday was the day i got .1)

SD_DRACULA

I'd say it's as dark now and here is what I see, PV3 is 4kwp N and the rest are 10kwp S

Your voltages look ok? Maybe it's too dark if all the numbers look ok.

yankinlk

Am i looking in the right place? Some recent examples.

Zero on this day - after the plumber. Just want to rule out any change to system - they only took Eddi offline - its back and working fine too.

On this day I only had 1.1kWh generated - but still there was something - and this was before the plumber.

slave1

Your panels should still be producing with ice and some snow cover, all mine are white/frozen over at the minute and generating 1.3kW

slave1

afterthought, have you optimisers, perhaps one panel is bringing down each of your strings e.g. front lower right, back lower left

yankinlk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123036719#Comment_123036719

No i dont have any

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123036646#Comment_123036646

By the looks of it, your getting voltage from the panels, so it's not like the fireman switch is switched off.

The fog would really hamper production

10-10-20

I think it's the snow as more than half of the panels are shaded, I think that they'll go into blocking mode and the whole circuit will fall.

slave1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123036841#Comment_123036841

One panel with zero production will pull the full string down AFAIK unless optimised

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123036934#Comment_123036934

Makes sense.

graememk

with bypass diodes it should bypass the panel, but with many shaded it could drop below the minimum power

yankinlk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123037246#Comment_123037246

Thanks Lads! @10-10-20 @slave1 @graememk

Appreciate that - just wanted to rule out anything bar the snow! Makes sense tbh.

I SHOULD have gone up when it was warmer and cleaned off the panels i guess - but not a hope of doing that now without a helicopter. Bring on the melt!

slave1

It will all be gone at the weekend, and weak winter production is not worth the risk of cleaning non-ground mounted panels IMHO

miamee

ON a slightly different note when the snow starts to melt it could come off the panels in big sheets/lumps so no hanging around underneath them. They frightened the life out of me the first time that happened at our house, I thought part of the roof was falling off 🤣

SD_DRACULA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123038239#Comment_123038239

Yup, learned the hard way to NOT have a glasstop table where the snow falls down 😂

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123037348#Comment_123037348

Well any improvement since?

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123040381#Comment_123040381

Oh look at the lovely and curious looking ice crystals that came off the table Dad…

miamee

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123040381#Comment_123040381

Ouch

yankinlk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123040433#Comment_123040433

Yep. Started to melt finally. Ive encouraged it along with the hose and finally seeing the house load powered by the shiny orb in the sky

Thanks all