Will Solar Panels work in cloudy conditions..?
This is an old thought too, but I still get a lot of questions here at Sloar Panel Review HQ about how will I generate solar power if I live in a cloudy climate. You would be amazed how much solar power is still being produced under cloudy conditions. The sun is always in the sky even if you cannot see it behind the clouds so there fore UV rays are still coming through.
A cloudy day provides sufficient diffuse light by which the panel will produce electricity. Optimum electrical production occurs with bright and sunny weather conditions. Under a light overcast, the modules might produce about half as much as under full sun, ranging down to as little as five to ten percent under a dark overcast day. In remote, off-grid applications, a PV system is connected to a battery storage system as a backup power source. In grid-connected applications, the PV system works in parallel with the utility power grid. So, if electrical needs exceed the solar power output, the local utility makes up for the shortfall. Conversely, when the PV system generates more energy than the building requires, the excess power is exported to the utility grid, reversing the electrical meter!
You may be wondering how it’s even possible for solar panels to produce any electricity at all on cloudy days. The answer lies in the incredible technology used by a single solar cell, which takes the light from the sun, or photons (particles of light), and converts that to electricity thanks to silicon in the cells which reacts with the sunlight to generate an electrical charge. Thanks to French scientist Edmund Becquerel for his discovery of what came to be known as the “photovoltaic effect” in the 19th century!
A number of solar cells are combined to form a solar panel, so that small charge created by a single solar cell is multiplied many times over to produce a significant amount of wattage from a whole panel. Solar panels perform best in sunny, unshaded conditions, so any type of shading or cloud cover can seriously affect a panel’s performance to the extent that, in extremely cloudy conditions, a panel may only operate at 50 percent efficiency. Multiply that by however many panels are in an array (an array of panels is basically a group of panels, which is what you normally need to supply enough power to run household appliances, electronics, etc.).
So, they will still work. In really cloudy conditions they will drop in performance but as long as you have battery storage system (which I highly recommend) then you will be fine.
How many days in a row could it really be overcast..?
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