Snowed maybe three inches overnight. No biggie, never got very cold and the wind died down almost all morning. And almost all the clouds evaporated.
Almost all.
There was this one patch of dark cloud, that hung on for hours after sunrise.
Right in the southeast corner of the horizon.
Right between me and the sun. Almost everything else was perfectly clear.
So the snow wouldn’t melt off the solar panels.
Which are not designed to be easy to squeegee off, because how would I do that?
It’s eleven AM, and I’m only now starting to get some charge. Halfway through the time when I can expect any charge at all, this time of the year.
These are the things that get you when you go off-grid. I’m looking at that defunct generator in my yard with a slowly-evolving attitude.
ETA: Heh. I always used to tell my students in vocational school that Murphy’s Law is not a exercise in defeatism, it’s an affirmative statement that we should leave as little to chance as possible. I knew there’d be short sunshine today, so yesterday (and in fact for some days before that) I paid attention and didn’t let my batteries get too low. And today my charge controller indicated a full charge after only two and a half hours of good sun. Excellent!
When in doubt concerning the balance between the size of your solar panel array and the size of your battery bank, always lean toward too much solar panel. Uncle Murphy lives on the other side of that equation.
