Solar panels 100w or 150 w ?

[Jobs a good un]

Hi All

Need to buy some solar panels for our yacht in the Ionian and wondering if I should buy 100 w or 150 w ?
Thanks for any reply’s

Mark

 

[macd]

You write "some" but what total wattage are you planning on?
I'm presuming you can conveniently fit either size.

 

[Pasarell]

Apart from reply above you need to consider your use of the boat, what you want to run and what battery bank you have.
I live aboard most of the time in the Ionian and run my fridge (the biggest power consumer) 24/7. All lights are LED. I fitted 2 x 100W panels last year feeding only into the domestic bank of 475AH. They have been plenty for my needs most of the time and I'm usually dumping power by midday. That includes powering computer and phones. To add more reserve I'm going to increase my battery bank to about 650AH and put another 100W panel in but not strictly necessary at the moment. This is mainly for the occasional grey day so that the batteries don't get depleted too much. When I'm in the marina I heat water from shore power but when away I find the occasional engine use supplemented by solar showers gives me plenty of hot water.

In general I would say install as much solar as you can when planning but make sure you have enough battery capacity to store the energy you generate