geem
Well-Known Member
Solar panels are incredible.
They sit there doing their thing silently without moving.
We have four 180w panels mounted on our guardrail. They have a prop that supports the panels that can be quickly adjusted for angle. This allows us to take advantage of early morning or late evening bright sunshine.
We installed a new Victron MPPT controller in November 2019 in the BVIs. This runs all four panels. Since we installed the new reg, we have sailed back to the UK. The panels were deployed horizontal all the way across the Atlantic. In fact we have crossed the pond four times with panels deployed like this with no problems.
Back in the UK for 12 months we did a major refit on the boat. The panels were left in the garage whilst we did this work. We are heading back to the Caribbean and are currently on the Algarve dodging Orcas.
The panels have done 11 months of output once you strip out the refit period but their total accumulated output is currently 462kw. This equates to about 1.4kw per day.
Without the solar we would likely have to run the generator to charge the batteries. Something we never do.
You could argue that you don't need 720w of solar. 1.4kw output could be achieved with far less capacity. We find that even with an overcast day in the UK, with long summer days we could fully charge the batteries with our installation. Panels are cheap compared to other forms of charging.
On sunny days we are fully charged in the morning. In the afternoon we can turn on the immersion heater using spare solar capacity or when the weather is hot we use the ice maker.
When we do this we peak at about 2.2kw of solar per day. The maximum peak output of the panels has been greater than the rated output due to the MPPT regulator.
Solar is amazing
They sit there doing their thing silently without moving.
We have four 180w panels mounted on our guardrail. They have a prop that supports the panels that can be quickly adjusted for angle. This allows us to take advantage of early morning or late evening bright sunshine.
We installed a new Victron MPPT controller in November 2019 in the BVIs. This runs all four panels. Since we installed the new reg, we have sailed back to the UK. The panels were deployed horizontal all the way across the Atlantic. In fact we have crossed the pond four times with panels deployed like this with no problems.
Back in the UK for 12 months we did a major refit on the boat. The panels were left in the garage whilst we did this work. We are heading back to the Caribbean and are currently on the Algarve dodging Orcas.
The panels have done 11 months of output once you strip out the refit period but their total accumulated output is currently 462kw. This equates to about 1.4kw per day.
Without the solar we would likely have to run the generator to charge the batteries. Something we never do.
You could argue that you don't need 720w of solar. 1.4kw output could be achieved with far less capacity. We find that even with an overcast day in the UK, with long summer days we could fully charge the batteries with our installation. Panels are cheap compared to other forms of charging.
On sunny days we are fully charged in the morning. In the afternoon we can turn on the immersion heater using spare solar capacity or when the weather is hot we use the ice maker.
When we do this we peak at about 2.2kw of solar per day. The maximum peak output of the panels has been greater than the rated output due to the MPPT regulator.
Solar is amazing
Certainly interesting to see all this stuff developing, hopefully another 10 years we'll see electric boats be viable for normal weekend sailing scenarios.
