Solar is about 50% as productive during the depths of winter than the summer at 50 degrees North (65% or so of the peak power, but obviously the duration of sunlight is reduced). "Barely any"/"Useless" is not accurate. Solar arrays remain productive during the winter, even at Northern latitudes.

Heat pumps obviously offer more heat output per kW than electric alternatives. It makes limited supply much more tenable and valuable.

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anovikov 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You forgot clouds. German experience shows they are at times, on average, only about 2% as effective (24 hours average, i.e. min vs max). And around 5% weekly average min vs max (battery storage over even longer periods is hard to imagine).

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elric 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Modern PV cells are pretty effective even in cloudy weather. Mine seem to produce more energy on overcast wintery days than on sunny wintery days because there are fewer harsh shadows that way.

	▲	nkmnz 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		This depends on the kind of clouds. Thick, low hanging clouds look gray for a reason.
	▲	rhubinak 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Make and model please. I'll be adding more solar on my roof and the current ones (sunpro SP460-N120M10) don't perform well during cloudy days.

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nkmnz 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Clouds and snow say no.