snow load

Japan’s National Institute of Technology and Evaluation (NITE) says in a new report that snow has damaged 43 PV installations of different sizes over the past four years. It urges PV system owners to conduct regular site inspections, use surveillance cameras, and remove snow at early stages.

A new report by the International Energy Agency’s Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme (IEA-PVPS) estimates that lost revenue from PV module soiling amounts to more than €3 billion ($3.2 billion) per year – an amount that is only set to increase as PV systems grow larger and more efficient.

Developed by U.S. researchers, the proposed coating solution is claimed to effectively melt ice and snow with temperatures down to -35 degrees Celsius. It was fabricated by using medium-chain triglyceride oil to plasticize two common industrial polymer polyvinyl chlorides and tested at a pilot facility in Alaska.

While Spain is struggling with the largest snowfall since 1971, pv magazine editor Alejandro Diego Rosell has asked two Spanish experts what the consequences of the massive snow loads produced by Storm Filomena will be on solar installations. According to them, some PV systems may stop working completely and component failures may not be excluded.

Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories in the United States are working to quantify the effects of abundant snowfall on PV systems and to identify cost effective strategies to mitigate energy losses and reliability issues caused by snow and ice.