How I still produce solar energy in snowy Finland winters

[@EvolutionShowNr1]

Thanks for a really informative video, Tony! Thinking of doing something similar with batteries. Cheers from Sweden! ;) /Johan

[@infocat13]

Idea, a masonry fireplace that shunts heat temporarily to the roof to melt the snow off the panels?

[@dnlmachine4287]

Its a good idea when snow is uncommon. But in true winter places like Finland, Canada etc, water + cold + roof = ice dams in gutters, under shingles, in eaves. Freeze-Thaw cycling essentially, and that will destroy the roof and anything else the water gets into. January 2024, Canada got to -45C air temperature without wind factor. Stay gold.

[@fredflintstone1428]

Brilliant solar solution.

[@laikatravels]

Wow that’s a decent system. Got 200 watts on my camper van!!

[@VeryWarmBear1]

Add a bank of amorphous solar panels, they may not put out as much as a result panel but they start generating from dawn to dusk, during partly cloudy, cloudy and Rainey days

[@CC-qg6zl]

Flipping awesome Tone!

[@Kindafu]

i salute you, my friend 😂great set up

[@VeryWarmBear1]

Wall mounted solar air heaters will help the garage heat up free up some power to be used for other things

[@mariusmarius7811]

its posible to heat panels on the roof ? melt down snow ? warm cable , like bathrom flour :)

[@joonasmakinen4807]

Same though! Vertical solar cells could be used to heat melt the horizontal solar cells.

[@aleksandar7393]

Why do not use MPPT2 power to power a small robot-roof-brush that would clean automatically above solar panels ?

[@jorgedelossantos2889]

Excelente video hermoso pais.

[@kevinmatthews2620]

take a look @ plylontech batteries, they do them in 2/3 & 5kw versions, you can string up to 16 of them together potential 60+kw of storage, and the cost saving will pay for your hybrid inverter :) :)

[@4LXK]

You sir need ground mounts. I just found a factory that does small batches of orders and we get two 10 panel ones in March that fit larger panels. Look up Orima

[@dnlmachine4287]

That is the best solution. But moneys. Stay gold.

[@4LXK]

@@dnlmachine4287 the steel itself adds maybe 800-1200 euros, digging 50cm trenches for cables and the cable plastic pipe are similar costs, if you have or rent equipment. I needed 2 tons of cement for the legs because our heatpump pipes are right below the panels - pillar mounts are cheaper.

[@Nik081]

Nice system and great content. I bought a ID3 in october and next step is a solarsystem. I have been looking what to buy. I have a similar house as yours and even the same color. Like half of the old wooden houses :) I have ground heating and forced ventilation with heatpump. Consumption is still too high to have any use for a battery. But still what kind of system to buy is difficult. Shall I go to normal inverter, hybrid inverter or multiple microinverter system any preference on those? And also panel types are too many to make it easy.

[@FinlandTony]

Thanks Niko. The cheapest and easiest install (which works great if you have no shading from trees or other buildings etc) is the normal inverter. I'm very happy with mine. The hybrid inverters are a fair bit more expensive than normal inverters. You can add battery systems later even on normal inverters. But a hybrid inverter would have allowed me to grow a battery bank myself over time, rather than get a professional install like a Tesla PW. Panels are so cheap now, it's never been a better time to get solar. If your house is similar to mine, then you won't have so much real estate on the roof, so you need to use the most powerful panels as possible. My roof panels are 300W (although I had ordered 325w panels...but that's another story). Now 340w panels are popular and cheap, so I recommend at least that. If you can get 6kw-7kw on the roof that would be good. As I mentioned, you really can't have too much solar. I demanded a 6kw inverter (rather than 4.7kw inverter the solar company wanted to install), because even back then I knew I would add more panels myself at a later date. Pretty much all panels are decent these days, so whatever the solar company uses should be good. Get a lot of quotes and ask what brand and size of inverter it will be and what brand and power solar panels they use. It's a very competitive industry and if you are patient (and a bit cheeky), you can get a great deal. My 6kw roof array + inverter and all installation costs was €9000. I would not recommend the company I used. I'm sure there are better deals out there. You will usually run a bigger solar array than the inverter, because solar panels don't produce 100% their rated power. If you get a 6kw array, you will probably peak around 5.1kw at the best time of day. So it's pretty common for the solar company to put say a 4.7kw or a 5kw inverter in, so if you plan to add panels at a later date tell them you want a 6kw inverter. Any quotes you get, you can ask me if they are good/worthwhile if you want.

[@LastEmpireOfMusic]

how much does the output decrease during the "non direct" sunlight times during winter days?

[@danielnicholls6868]

should pic up a little extra solar from the snow reflection with the panels on wall

[@FinlandTony]

Yep that was my thinkin too. When the sun is low on the horizon it has way more atmosphere to cut through, so you don't get as big gains as overhead sun, so any boost is welcome. This 5kw array gives around 1.6kw most of the day. When my roof panels clear of snow, I actually produce a little too much solar with both arrays and my 6kw inverter clips off the extra. Looking forward to that.

[@TheCbj79]

Hi i will ask som questions i live in norway. And i have just usage of max 800kwh a month. I want so bad to get of grid. But i think i wood have a problem now lot or clouds and rain. Live almost as close to danmark we can in norway. Do you think i cud do it? I have made it on a 650w generator for 3 day, Nor fridge tho and oven.. Ore hot wather but that i cud fix whit gas tho.. Maby oven also.. It's just my house that need to be offgrid, I can get power form friends on batteries ore som power supply.. Even wooder to buy a EL car to have a power bank lol..

[@avgfinnishdude]

Im doing a offgrid system at kuopio finland and im wondering if it would be possible to actually get atleast something during december-january? since i don't want my batteries to die.. Someone once said to me that there isn't even enough solar to make a voltage.. So do you have any tips?

[@AuroraBorealisLive]

Hey buddy, in Kuopio in December & January you won't make anything. Even if you had 20kw of panels you'd make a few hundred watts on a good day. Off grid in Finland is a very tough thing to do in winter. You'd need wind and also wood burning heating and cooking I think. How many kWh do you use per day in winter now?

[@AuroraBorealisLive]

It's Tony btw, logged in on my other account 🙈

[@AuroraBorealisLive]

In December I got 46kWh and January I got 33kWh. That's totals for the entire month. My house uses 100kWh per day then, so solar was less than 1% of my power in these months. And that's in Parainen, sunniest part of Finland.

[@avgfinnishdude]

@@AuroraBorealisLive So our main house is in Porvoo and its all ongrid etc.. but our cottage at Kuopio has only 12V system atm.. im going to do a 240v system totally offgrid this summer.. looking to get atleast 1kw of panels. So the point of getting atleast some power in the darkest months is that the system would need to hibernate as batteries die if they don't get charged and are really cold.. There won't be anyone using electricity in those months tho so only to keep the system alive. I want the system as i would like to use power tools there and also my laptop sometimes.. the 12V system is like 2005 and the batteries run out in like 2 hours :D They were there when we bought the cottage so its powering the lights of the cottage.

[@AuroraBorealisLive]

@@avgfinnishdude Ahhhhhh if it is a cottage it is a different matter! But, the problem in winter is the solar panels get snow on them and don't produce much (as well as the sun being low and it also being cloudy a lot!) so honestly, probably the best solution is a little portable generator to keep the batteries topped up in winter. Solar will run the place most of the year, but no amount of panels will be enough in Dec/Jan. Check out Victron stuff. You can control it from APP on phone, it's very good (inverters/battery chargers/etc). Batteries will be biggest expense. But maybe Motonet has special offer for some 😁 I put 240v system in my camper van and put a LCD TV in there. It's easy.

[@teet7918]

Great idea! How many Kwh You produced in this November?

[@bilboriches7216]

I think around 5-6 kw.

[@LOVACKOJINEUBIJA1]

show us your battery pack please,how many batteries you have,show us everything dude pleaseeeee,we wanna se all,your controlers,your inverters,everything..

[@robev809]

How much is the cost of electricity per kwh in Finland? Also could you use a small leaf blower attached to your drone to clear the snow off the roof panels? That's if the weight is not too much.

[@FinlandTony]

The snow is really on there. I've been on the roof pouring buckets of hot (not boiling) water on the panels and the snow won't budge. Just need a day when temp gets above 0°C and it will loosen up and fall off. It's really thick snow because we had a big snowstorm a few weeks ago so probably 20cm thick. Electricity cost is around 11 cents kwh. 4 cents for electricity, 4 cents for transmission cost and a few cents tax. Not too bad actually in comparison to other countries.

[@robev809]

@@FinlandTony good price for electricity. Slightly more here in the UK I'm on a renewable tariff and pay 15p day rate and 5.5p for five hours from 8:30pm, so average 11p a unit. I have solar pv and thermal for hot water, even in winter the thermal glass panels raise the temperature a few degrees, maybe you need some sort of insulation panel that you could pull over the panels to warm them up from inside, would be so much easier if they were on ground level. Keep up the videos, really enjoying your content and beautiful scenery. If you could livestream EV journeys it would be epic when the conditions are as harsh as they are up there.

[@FinlandTony]

@@robev809 Oh nice system you got there. How many kw is your solar array? We've had a couple sunny days now and the snow has fallen off most panels, but still a bit stubborn on 3 or 4 of the 20 panels on the roof. Those few panels are dragging the others down. But still, I broke 10kWh today for the first time this year, which I'm happy about, so it's slowly ramping up. I don't think I can live stream yet, need 1000 subscribers for that and I've got 300 or something. But when I reach that figure, for sure I'll live stream my trips through Finland.

[@robev809]

@@FinlandTony I've only got a 5.4kWp PV system, running through a 3.6kW inverter as we are limited on output to the grid plus I have two thermal panels that provide most of the hot water for our family between April and September. I found your channel as I also have an e-niro, I took it all the way to the south of France across into Italy and back through Germany last summer so love long road trips. Really interesting to see it performing so well up there with you - the turtle mode coming on at 9% was probably due to extreme cold, I've not gone below 8% but apparentely at +2c it comes on around 4%. Can't wait until you start the livestreams, I'm sure it will be very popular especially if the weather is harsh. I' think you will get to 1000 subscribers really soon as your channel is growing nicely with the EV content. Best of luck with that.

[@ash3rr]

it's about 30c p/kwh at the moment.

[@noahriding5780]

Is it possible for your solar panels to drain your battery bank if there's no incoming sun in winter with long periods of clouds? I'm having my battery bank power plummet in just a few days but I've literally been using ZERO power. The only explanation seems to be that somehow the panels are draining power when there's long winter months of no sun. Hope someone can offer insight on this. Thank you.

[@ieism1]

I don't think that's possible if you have it hooked up to an mppt or charge controller. Unless your panels are directly connected to the panels, current doesn't flow back. I suspect you're seeing voltage drop from just low temperatures. I have the same problem in my cabin, December produces no solar here in Norway and the battery basically loses all charge due to the temperature dropping so low. But I'm not an expert.

[@zydomason]

How does that compare to a similarly sunny day during the summer?

[@txaliocat2239]

Very interesting vídeo. I'm on the way to instal solar panels as well. Have you checked which is the minimum intensity that the e-Niro can take? 6 amps? Which are the dimensions of your panels, 1 x 1.7m? Thanks!

[@FinlandTony]

The e-niro can charge at 6A which gives 1.2kw charging speed on the dash. I used my juicebooster set at 6A (just uploading a video on that charger now). The full details of my panels can be found here (might need to use google translate) www.thermosun.fi/epages/thermosun.sf/fi_FI/?ObjectPath=/Shops/Kuvaus/Products/100330HC. Annoyingly, they are now at 119 euros each! Solar is just so cheap these days, it's awesome!

[@txaliocat2239]

@@FinlandTony Thanks a lot, very useful information!!

[@belfasta]

Cloudy summers day in Belfast June and I get 2kw out of a 4kw system

[@kertresz]

Wow. 👍👍

[@ShoNuff26]

What brand of solar panels are you using?

[@anttivalimaki7339]

They say do not rock common boat, but seems as solar panel investment is nonpatriotic act?!?

[@lokesh303101]

Interesting!.

[@antumurikks4861]

you need 150 m^2 talvisähköksi aurinkopaneeleja

[@UMAIRRAJA90]

Why you have ladder on wall to window?

[@amoult]

Mandatory by law in Finland. It's an escape route in case of fire.

[@thomasjacques5286]

Barvo

[@cormackeeney3897]

Looks awful.