Natural melting and shedding conditions of photovoltaic module snow cover

Abstract

Natural melting and shedding of the snow cover is an important approach to removing winter snow cover from photovoltaic(PV) modules, but there is a relative lack of research on the natural melting process of photovoltaic snow cover. To this end, the paper began with an analysis of the physical process of natural snow melting on photovoltaic modules and its heat balance. Subsequently, an experimental platform based on a walk-in microclimate laboratory was set up to test the effects of thermal radiation intensity, snow density, snow height and module tilt on the temperature and shedding time of the contact surface of PV modules. The experimental results show that under the experimental conditions of this paper, there is a certain correlation between the snow cover shedding and the contact surface temperature of the PV module, and the temperature at the time of shedding is generally in the range of -1~-0.1 ℃, but do not rise to the freezing point temperature. Besides the thermal radiation intensity, snow cover density, snow cover height and the tilt angle of the PV module all have a great influence on the contact surface temperature and shedding time of the PV module and the snow layer. Among the above influencing factors, the title angle has the most significant effect, compared with 23°, when the title angle reaches at 33° and 43°, PV module ice melting and snow shedding time are shortened by about 40% and 85% respectively.

Keywords

• photovoltaic modules
• snow cover
• natural snow melting
• contact surface temperature
• snow melt time