Is anyone electrically self sufficient - What's your set-up?

[Beakster]

After reading lots of threads it seems that the way to go in the UK is solar, but correct me if you think different.

I'd be interested to know if anyone has managed to supply all their power needs without the need for shore power charges or running the engine, or at least if anyone is almost self sufficient.

If so, what is your solar/turbine set-up and what electrical item are you using on a day to day basis.

I know there are lots of threads on this matter but it would be nice summarise the best ones that work, and after all the technology is constantly improving.

 

[Fantasie 19]

You'll get a whole load of people along in a minute that will say "that depends..." ...err, like I just did.... As anyone can live off of solar power alone - it just depends how happy you are to turn equipment off....

As you asked - I can confirm I do supply all my needs by solar...

I have two of these trickle chargers (1.5W each, one in the window on each side) feeding a normal car battery, which keeps my VHF radio going all summer....

 

[Beakster]

You're right, it does depend, but I'm a few weeks from buying my boat, so I'm starting from scratch. It would be good to know what works for each person and hopefully I can pick a system that will match my requirements the closest rather than go down the trial and error route, that way I hope to be be more realistic about the total cost of the system before I spend any money and then have to add to it.

Realistically my day to day requirement will be LED lights at night, a small fridge - well insulated - a laptop and a diesel heater in the winter.

But rather than suggestions to power my possible set-up, what really works for others is what I'm looking for, even if it's just the VHF, all the info helps.

 

[FullCircle]

You're right, it does depend, but I'm a few weeks from buying my boat, so I'm starting from scratch. It would be good to know what works for each person and hopefully I can pick a system that will match my requirements the closest rather than go down the trial and error route, that way I hope to be be more realistic about the total cost of the system before I spend any money and then have to add to it.

Realistically my day to day requirement will be LED lights at night, a small fridge - well insulated - a laptop and a diesel heater in the winter.

But rather than suggestions to power my possible set-up, what really works for others is what I'm looking for, even if it's just the VHF, all the info helps.

Ditch the laptop for a netbook, saving 3Ah approx.

 

[Beakster]

I doubt I'd get rid of my trusty Macbook and would probably spend the money that I could spend on a netbook on more solar panels or a bigger battery.

At the moment I've budgeted about £700 for batteries and panels. That should be able to get me 200w of panels and 200Ah of batteries or thereabouts. Might go for more batteries.

 

[Conachair]

You're right, it does depend, but I'm a few weeks from buying my boat, so I'm starting from scratch. It would be good to know what works for each person and hopefully I can pick a system that will match my requirements the closest rather than go down the trial and error route, that way I hope to be be more realistic about the total cost of the system before I spend any money and then have to add to it.

Realistically my day to day requirement will be LED lights at night, a small fridge - well insulated - a laptop and a diesel heater in the winter.

But rather than suggestions to power my possible set-up, what really works for others is what I'm looking for, even if it's just the VHF, all the info helps.

Agree about the laptop, biggest draw at anchor. Much further south I could get by with 180w solar as long as the laptop didn't see much use. Though the fridge needs better insulation which would have helped there. Aerogen 4 was useless most of the time with no wind.
Over winter before diesel cost has been up to £20 a week for a toasty warm boat with a drip feed heater.
Personally I would bite the bullet and buy a honda eu1 or 2 genny. Great for power tools as well.

 

[mandlmaunder]

This works for us

On our 36ft cat we have 2 x 135watt kyocera panels on a custom arch with a KISS wind gen capable of producing 28AMPS at 30mph wind speed.

These feed one fridge freezer(12v watercooled) 3 fans (hela) a split of LED and halogen lights (the halogen as SWMBO likes the light better for reading) 2 cell phones only charged every 4 or 5 days and one MacBook which uses the true inverter to charge, pressurized water.

All this runs from 6 6v Trojan105 golf cart batteries run in parallel 12volt series giving 675 AMP hour.

Living in the tropics means that the panels get plenty of high sun throughout the day and there is usually wind around as well.

Since our last upgrade from 85 watt solar panels to the higher 135 watt we have not had to run the engines at all for additional power. This was our third upgrade since first fitting a single 65 watt panel and a Rutland 510 wind gen when we first purchased the boat 12 years ago.

We do own a Honda EU2000 but that is for work purposes and not intended for the boat, but it is there should all else fail.

Does that help in your quest for power independence Beakster?. Think big as the more toys you have the more you seem to acquire as time goes by.

Your power consumption is dependent on your comfort levels, some are happy with a working VHF where as we are happy with cold beer and internet at all hours of the day and night.

Just my three pennies worth.

Mark
Sunny ST John VI

 

[TQA]

400 wats of solar feeding 6 Trojans runs the fridge making ice, lappie, lights not LED yet and power to spare most days.

I meed to run the engine only after two to three overcast days in a row. Lappie gets a hammering on those days. I think twice so far this year.

However I am in the Caribbean.

 

[GrahamM376]

200 solar + aerogen 4 + 500AH batteries. Fridge (BD50F) running 24/7, fans quite often, notebook around 12/7 (ditched the 17" laptop), LED lights, LCD TV occasionally etc. Battery banks already back up to 13.2V at 10am. However, with UK sun I think you would need more panels, although fridge wouldn't be working so hard - we're getting over 30 degrees below decks.

 

[Talbot]

existing set up is 180w solar plus small forgen trickle feeding 2 x Trojan for 400 amp hr.

I plan to upgrade to 2 x 240w panels and a Forgen 1870 for the main batteries and leave the forgen trickle keeping the engine start at full capability

mind you this is a very electric boat, and if all else fails I have a 4.5kw generator!

I reckon I will have 3 x 60w panels for sale about this time next year.......(Brighton)

 

[muyuu]

Has anyone done some numbers comparing solar/wind set-ups against simply recharging by motoring? Because the costs are such that I'm not sure all the extra equipment can be ever amortised.

I know simple wind gens work well but they don't really scale up much. Same with solar...

 

[TQA]

Engines = noise.

Wind generators esp older Air breeze [ devils breath ] = noise.

Solar = silence.

The sound of silence is priceless.

 

[catalac08]

We have two Rutland 913's to charge 4x110AH lead acid batteries and we can only last about 6 days before the batteries are needing some additional charge. This is only to run a fridge, lighting, radio, TV and some laptop use. I have just bought a 80W solar panel which should (just) make us energy self-sufficient.
Much as I find the Rutland 913's extremely quiet and reliable and the regulator has the facility to slow down the blades when the batteries are fully charged and I find Marlec excellent to deal with we do only get about HALF the claimed output and I think that for live aboard purposes only the bigger wind generators can deliver the output you will need, and this needs to be in tandem with some solar power also.
With hindsight I should have got an Air x/Air Breeze, which would have been cheaper than 2x 913's and given more power. Mounting higher would have maintained safe headroom (which was my reason for having the 913's). Wonderful thing hindsight!

Running an engine to charge batteries for 4 hrs per day for 5 weeks a year would cost say £700 in fuel and writing down the engine so two years of this would break even with a wind genny, solar panel and regulator and to my mind running an engine to charge batteries is pretty grim and anti-social, noise, fumes excess wear on engine etc. A water cooled genny would be a more efficient use of fuel and less noisy but fuel has to be bought stored etc and on a small boat wind + solar is the only way to go

 

[muyuu]

Yep, a small wind generator and a small solar panel are a good investment. I was thinking in bigger set-ups, because the costs go up exponentially and there must be some sweet spot when it's simply not worth it to invest any more, compared to motoring a bit when you need a bit more power than usual.

 

[mandlmaunder]

Yep, a small wind generator and a small solar panel are a good investment. I was thinking in bigger set-ups, because the costs go up exponentially and there must be some sweet spot when it's simply not worth it to invest any more, compared to motoring a bit when you need a bit more power than usual.

The true sweet spot for Solar and Wind is sitting in an anchorage for weeks not worrying if you have to leave to buy more fuel to run the essentials and the toys.

When the sun is shining and or the wind is blowing the initial cost of your set up is totally offset by not having to do anything to gather power. It is not just a cash spent x watts made equation but a peace of mind with yourself for no more power worries, you can get on with the serious stuff like opening a cold beer.

Mark

PS- the KISS wind genny is silent up to 38knt and it is mounted over our bedroom. So it really is quiet and a handy alarm should the wind pick up in the night

 

[charles_reed]

Ditch the laptop for a netbook, saving 3Ah approx.

Of course that depends on how much you use your laptop.

I live on my boat about 6/12 year, mainly in Greece - and recently fitted another 190 watts to my solar array, which now totals 318 watts nominal.
I make the distinction as it's almost impossible, on a boat mounting, to ensure the most effective insolation of the PV arrays, which make them far, far less efficient.

The additional wattage gave me 10 days at anchor, from 7 days, before system volts, unloaded, drop to 12.2. The rest of my set-up is 320 ah of battery capacity, an Adverc smart regulator and the PV panels feeding through an MPPT controller.

As with every equation there are 2 sides - input and output to the batteries.
Reducing output is by far the most effective.

Using a conventional P3 Pentium-powered laptop, I estimate 50ah total under WinXP 30ah under Linux. Using a CULV-powered mini-laptop ( a step in processing power above an Atom-powered netbook and a far better screen) that drops to about 28ah on Win7 and marginally less on Linux.
The rest of the output is:-
40ah for the fridge @ 28C ambient (it's more during the day and less at night)
12ah for the CD-player, recharging mobiles etc
6ah for lighting (I don't use LEDs and IMHO they make no economic sense).
In port 2hrs on shorepower brings the batteries up to float, for every 24hrs off charge, on a 20amp switch-mode charger.
I used to have an Ampair wind genny, that died due to a ducking and wind generation is probably irrelevant in anything but the E Med. However any balanced system should probably include wind generation.

 

[GrahamM376]

(I don't use LEDs and IMHO they make no economic sense)

But having to increase panels to over 300W to power bulbs does? I don't think so.

 

[ccscott49]

But having to increase panels to over 300W to power bulbs does? I don't think so.

I have lots of LED's also, but can see the point he's making, they are not on long enough, normally, to make a huge difference to your electricity consumption. Mine often are and theres a lot of lights, (must train crew to turn them off!!!) but for the most part, the average yacht sees not a huge saving in power. Makes me feel better though.

 

[GrahamM376]

I found fitting LED's made a very big difference, 10 x cabin lights for the same draw as 1 bulb, Bebi anchor light 150 ma compared to 2 amps. We rarely use marinas so spend months on anchor or mooring and since launching before Easter haven't had to use the engine or genny to charge batteries once - onboard 24/7. The other big difference was binning the HP pavillion laptop which packed up in the heat anyway. The Eec notebook draws very little power through the small inverter so stays on most of the day.

 

[Madeo]

Let's try the other end of the scale...

I live aboard full time, and have a 55w panel, no shore charger, no fridge, paraffin lamps, 110 a/h domestic, 70 a/h engine batteries. I can run my net book all day (have to, to work) and run nav lights all night. In summer here or in the tropics, no problem. Winter or the uk, I need to add another panel really, but get by with the odd half hour of engine 70A alternator)

Prefer to tackle the prob from the other side, limiting consumption instead of getting into an expensive energy arms race. Mind you, another panel and I reckon I would be completely s/sufficient, even in overcast weather...

Good excuse to frequent sunny places!