Will Winter Conditions Affect Solar Panels Badly?

Using solar panels to electrically feed our loads will greatly reduce carbon emission, and reduce the rely on electric utility, so save us much money by cutting our monthly utility bill. In winter, our solar panels will get lesser direct sun light, and sometimes they will be covered by snow, so the question is; Will this affect solar panels badly?

The answer is; There will be very low effect, and may be no effect at all, especially with new solar panels which designed to keep their efficiency in such cold conditions.

In winter, the solar panels may have subjected to be covered by snow which reduces their efficiency because there will Not be much light reaching to them, but it’s a temporary problem, and rarely happened, its actually uncommon. And because our solar panels are always tilted “having angle with the ground, and not installed flat”, the solar panels will catch more light when they are facing southern direction, because the snow will slide off, and falls. In addition, you can use a smooth brush to remove the snow off the solar panels top side. After the snow is melt, solar panels will get more light, over the direct sun light, it is also the reflected light coming from the snow on the ground, as the snow is very good reflector.

The second issue in winter is the low temperature and whether it will affect the solar panel efficiency or not. The good news is that cold weather increases the efficiency of most of electronics, and our solar panels do not depend on heat in generating electricity, it depends mainly on light.

The third issue in winter is that the sun light will be less direct than summer months, which makes the harvest is lower, as the solar panel will generate less electricity, but there will Not be obvious reduction in solar panels efficiency due to modern designs which makes the solar panels still generate electricity efficiently even under these conditions, actually modern solar panels require less sun light to produce electricity.

At the end, we can say that solar panels performance will be almost the same in summer and winter, and despite less direct sun light, and shorter days in winter, our solar panels will do good, so do not be worry if you live in rainy/snow place as this will not prevent your solar panels from generating electricity.