Solar Panels In Minnesota

When the photons in sunlight hit the atoms in your solar panel, electrons can be kicked loose. Solar panels are designed to collect these disassociated electrons and store them in a battery to power your home and electronics.

Snow and Ice are rarely an issue for a properly installed and maintained solar panel system. Solar panels generate a good amount of heat through their operation and will usually melt any snowfall or ice accumulation. Solar panels are also almost always installed at an angle so snow and ice will generally slide right off. If your panels become entirely blocked by snow or ice, however, they will not generate power, the same as with any other debris that might cover your panels.

Solar Panels still produce some electricity during cloudy days from indirect and UV light, but their production is reduced to around 15-30% of what they would create in direct sunlight.

Solar panels, or solar photovoltaic panels, transform sunlight into usable energy by converting the light into an electric field that then flows into a conductive wire.  The conductive wire flows into the inverter which then transforms the electricity to an alternating current which can then be used to power a property.

You can read our full article about how solar panels work here.

In order to figure out how many solar panels you need, you’ll need to determine how much energy your household uses, how many panels you can fit on your roof, the peak sunlight in your area, how efficient the panels you’re considering are, and whether net metering is available in your area. The easiest way to find out is to get a solar panel estimate from a local installer.

Flexible solar panels are limited in the materials they can be made from. Rigid solar panels can be made with more efficient components, and are generally thicker, which means more material to interact with solar rays and produce electricity.