i have done this on a particularly problematic installation here in our heavy mount shasta snow country - where the deep snow would freeze to ice on the module, and as it crept down the array, it would peel off the bottom edge of the module frame, usually resulting in broken glass/destroyed module. so this was done more to prevent module damage rather than snow removal. the heat tape was attached to the aluminum on the bottom edge of the bottom module. the result has (so far) worked well. the heat seems to keep the ice melted enough to mitigate the module frame damage. when the customer is home they use a snow rake to remove the bulk of the snow off the roof mounted array, but they wanted a way to prevent damage when they are gone. btw, this is a grid tied system, so power consumption is not a huge issue unless the grid is down. todd On Wednesday, January 2, 2013 5:45pm, "Drake" <drake.chamber...@redwoodalliance.org> said:
Hello Wrenches, There has been a lot of discussion about how to get snow off of modules. It was even suggested that we might run power back through the modules to warm them. Indeed that was tested, and seemed to take a lot of power for somewhat promising results. A customer asked me about heat tape. This sounds like it might be a viable option. Noticing the melting pattern on my array, it looks like a little heat tape on the bottom would loosen the glacier where it dams up the sheet of snow and ice covering the array. Maybe some heat tape on the bottom frame, that could be switched on when needed, would help clear the array. Has anyone tried this? Do you see any problem with this method? Thanks, Drake Drake Chamberlin Athens Electric LLC OH License 44810 CO License 3773 NABCEP Certified Solar PV Installer 740-448-7328 [http://athens-electric.com/] http://athens-electric.com/ Sent from Finest Planet WebMail.
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