Fuel for Thought

Electric Snow Panel

The kind of weather we’re seeing this week in Michigan puts me at the limits of my solar powered set up. With heavy cloud cover and snow that the snow removal crews had trouble keeping up with, I still managed to pull in one amp of power and push my battery bank up to 12.7 volts. I had to move a couple times to blow off the snow, but the photo shows how much snow remained on the panels. There was over an inch on the front panel and between a half and a quarter inch on the rear panel. It took aggressive power management. I used a flashlight for interior lighting and turned off the refrigerator. Later in the day I left the van and turned off the heater to save as much power for night heating. I had heat from my Espar heater all night, and this morning the skies cleared, and I started the cycle again.

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