wind generator or solar ?

Pound for pound solar, no question. Long daylight in N Scotland summers help.
I'm about to throw off my noisy Rutland 514 as a 100 watt panel quietly outperformed it by many times last summer.
Siting is really important to minimise shade.
 
In the summer there is no contest - solar every time. (There's another similar thread on the go, and if you look you'll see why I am so adamant). Cheaper, no moving parts, no noise, just better in every way.
 
If your looking at winter, maybe worth considering. I found that from late April to Sept solar was better. I paid over £1000 for WG, controller, cable and mounting poles and a little over £100 for a 100 watt panel, c/w PWM controller and cable. Mounted it on my davits. I'm planning a solar arch with more panels.
 
depends On your needs in the off season and what you consider the ‘off season’?
 
E-mac said:
If your looking at winter, maybe worth considering. I found that from late April to Sept solar was better. I paid over £1000 for WG, controller, cable and mounting poles and a little over £100 for a 100 watt panel, c/w PWM controller and cable. Mounted it on my davits. I'm planning a solar arch with more panels.
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Cost wise it is quite easy to achieve redundancy with solar. We have 300w on the wheelhouse roof which was sufficient to cover all our electrical needs living on board in northern Europe (Baltic, North Sea, Holland) right through to the end of October. Multiple smaller panels cope better with shading.
 
srah1953 said:
Living on the boat over the winter ....
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From what I have read on the subject (winter camping), you need at least twice the amount of area compared to summer operations. Clearing off the snow probably helps. For a WG to produce anything near it's max rated output it really has to be howling outside, especially in port.
 
My current/last boat's 500w amorphous solar setup does basically nothing in winter. Cloud cover, azimuth, day length all add up to a lot of engine use for charging while in summer it has amps to spare. Have 3x50 on newboat, which I intend to at least double. Wintering here is going to need a plug, a lot of engine hours or a genset.
 
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srah1953 said:
For areas like Ireland or Scotland which is more productive - wind generator or solar?
Thanks
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i would have a small one of each, but the panel has to see the sky and the windmill is no good packed in a tight marina or boatyard.

Look for a used Aerogen - generally quiet and reliable.

Think about the demand side, if you are not powering a computer or fridge what real boost do actually require?
As an aside, a great many sailing boats actually need nothing additional at all, in typical usage.
 
I bought two of these :-

SIMPLE DC POWER ANALYSER WATT VOLT AMP METER 12V 24V SOLAR WIND ANALYZER AMMETER | eBay

I use one for source and one for load.

You get, amps, volts, min volts, max w,w, max volts , ah, These scroll through automatically all the time. For the first time, I have been able to see what each appliance is drawing.

I have checked with a multimeter and the readings are very close. Or perhaps I just got lucky.

You don't get much cable length, but what there is, is meaty. The instructions however were poor apart from the specification.

I'm guessing that some systems will need a shunt/shunts but perhaps people with more a lot more experience than me could advise on whether these cheap products are any good and the best method to install.

These, plus the PWM are working well so far.
 
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