Our recent story on a net-zero town hall in Upstate New York prompted a question about what impact snow might have on the solar panels that are installed, at a slight angle, on the building’s flat roof.

This is a darn good question – and it turns out the scientists at Michigan Technological University’s Keweenaw Research Center are right now looking deeply into how snow affects solar generation and what might be the best way to ameliorate any losses caused by the stuff.

Being way up on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, snow is something Michigan Tech folks know well – last winter some 225 inches fell at the research center – and the