Clearing snow off your system means production you won't get if it's covered with snow, as this photo -- which shows me holding our TED monitoring device with our home solar system in the background -- illustrates.

Yes, the snow is still falling here on Colorado's Front Range in mid-March. We got about 1/2 inch of the white stuff last night.

However, snow on solar panels in March is vastly different than it is in January. The sun's way more powerful and the temperatures typically much warmer.

That didn't stop me from trying a new approach to getting snow off of our 5.59 kW solar system yesterday morning, though. This time, I used the garden hose. I wouldn't do this in January. It's too cold and I, not to mention the water itself, would freeze -- not a good idea for the solar system, or for the roof.

Yesterday, though, had a forecast for temperatures in the 50s. So there I was, at 8 a.m. standing on a ladder (no, I'm not getting up on a snowy roof anymore!), shooting water onto our 26 REC panels. It took about eight minutes to completely clear our lower 13-panel string of snow plus about 1/2 of our upper 13-panel array (I couldn't get the hose to shoot the water far enough to clear the entire upper array).

Water or Mr. Longarm?
I'm not sure if it was worth it, although it was actually kind of fun -- more fun than reaching around with a Mr. Longarm, and a lot less work. Overall, I'd say we generated about 3 kWh we wouldn't have if I'd let the snow melt on its own.

The moral of the mid-March solar system snow story here in Aurora, Colo.: Don't bother to clear snow if a clear, sunny and warm day is forecast in the middle of March for the day after the snow. It will melt quickly enough that you won't lose much production (though you'll lose some).

Of course, it's a very different story if you're talking about a sunny, but cold day in January or February following a snowstorm, as the table below clearly illustrates. Then, you may well want to clear the snow from your solar system.

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