Thanks for the pointers. However, the attraction of buying in HK is because my wife has contacts with the renewable energy community there, and as Shenzen (where a lot of the Alibaba suppliers sell from) is just over the border, I'd expect her to be able to access good deals - perhaps even adding our requirements to a much larger order and thereby qualifying for the lowest prices; there's a big difference between one-off prices and 100+ off! . I'd expect anything that can stand up to Hong Kong's climate to be OK on a boat! Totally agree that market prices in HK tend to be high by Chinese standards, and there's no DIY to speak of - my Hong Kong relatives are amazed at the number of jobs we do like decoration, engine maintenance etc. - they'd never consider DIY, because labour is cheap, so there's little incentive for it.
Agreed. There's a lot of rubbish talked about reduction of output by shading. My small panel is often partially shaded but continues to produce useful output.
I think the point is that older solar panels were susceptible to severe degradation by small shadows because the cells were all connected in series, so blocking one cell blocked the output from the whole panel. Modern panels have a greater poutput from individual cells, so the individual cells connected in parallel and series, so blocking one cell only partially blocks the output of the whole panel.
