Solar Panels

Moonstruck said:

Then when that runs out, he could come into the US as an illegal immigrant (oops! I meant to say undocumented citizen), and collect similar benefits. Why haven't I thought of that?

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Lol crazy hey!

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Hendo78 said:

Lol crazy hey!

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You would be amazed at whats happening here Hendo, the US is traveling the exact same road Oz did about 15-20 years back....the media, schools, PC police, illegals, welfare....

"You would be amazed at whats happening here Hendo, the US is traveling the exact same road Oz did about 15-20 years back....the media, schools, PC police, illegals, welfare.... "

We certainly are. The really sad thing is most people in the US are too stupid to learn from there own history much less someone elses.

Here is a man who added solar and has data to support his work. It comes from a Willard group I am part of.

Over a year ago there were some Email exchanges about Solar panels on boats,
and their usefulness - esp here in the Pacific Northwest. In light of that
I thought I would pass on this: A bit over 1 year ago we installed two
245watt Solar Panels on Viking Star. Before doing so I tried to get
information from others who had panels installed about their performance,
but all the 'information' was just gut feels. Well, I have been tracking
our panel's daily production via the Morningstar MPPT controller's data
logging capability, and today I sat down to work up a 1 year summery.

Some background:
O We installed two 245w panels, mounted largely flat and with no tilting /
aiming ability.
O We are using an MPPT type charge controller
O Have been in the Pacific Northwest the whole year
O Our 'Cruise' session is from March 1st to November 1st (Nov..Feb we
come into a dock somewhere)

Looking back over the year the actuals came within 2% of modeled (predicted)
output. During our cruising season (March through the end of October) we
produced an average of 124.7Ah/day, saved 245 hours of run-time on our
Kubota DC generator, which results in a raw ROI of 5.5 years. Figuring in
the Federal Tax Credit it drops to 3.9 years.

I have more details here if you want to see them:
http://mvvikingstar.blogspot.com/2013/06/a-year-with-solar-or-is-it-wait-unt
il.html -or- mv.VikingStar: A Year with Solar, or is it: “Wait until he figures out what a monumental waste of money that was”. . . . .

-al-

Viking Star
45' Monk Sr. / McQueen
mvVikingStar.blogspot.com

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Great info Keith.
Nice to get some real data.

After a bit more research I have had to change what panels I will add.
So as to keep the characteristics of the panels similar to the existing Kyosera 85 watt units and be able to use my existing controller I am initially going to add 2 x 90 watt lay flat panels.
I will give these a trial and if out put is as being predicted I will then possibly add another 2 x 90 watt.
This will then give me 265 watts at 24 V.
This is all part of my existing refit program.
Cheers
Benn

Excellent info Keith, thankyou for that....

Hendo,
Hope you don`t mind me chiming in on this.
I have 90 watts of panels to each of my 200ah main batteries (the IG has an odd set up) via good digital controllers which tell you what is going on. A friend and I did the install, made my own mounting brackets,and I`m nowhere near as handy as you. I still have a genset, but also have happy well charged batteries, even a 25w panel serving the genset battery via a simple controller. I bought all the equipment on Ebay, don`t be afraid of that.
Panels need to be as unobstructed as possible,preferably no shadowing no matter how small, and need an airspace underneath to prevent overheating. I put fuses in the + line just before the batteries, found that tip in a helpful Don Casey article you should find by online search. You can locate your controller(s) in a good place, mine had to go in the ER.
Both PeterB, and Rebel, have solar. Rebel (John) lives in Perth, boat is/was? in Sydney,he recently fitted 400w of panel to replace a genset and is very approachable. In March he anchored in my bay and was running a fridge with ice cream in it. Try a PM.
In my experience the real panel output is about half the theoretical.

BruceK said:

Hendo,
Hope you don`t mind me chiming in on this.
I have 90 watts of panels to each of my 200ah main batteries (the IG has an odd set up) via good digital controllers which tell you what is going on. A friend and I did the install, made my own mounting brackets,and I`m nowhere near as handy as you. I still have a genset, but also have happy well charged batteries, even a 25w panel serving the genset battery via a simple controller. I bought all the equipment on Ebay, don`t be afraid of that.
Panels need to be as unobstructed as possible,preferably no shadowing no matter how small, and need an airspace underneath to prevent overheating. I put fuses in the + line just before the batteries, found that tip in a helpful Don Casey article you should find by online search. You can locate your controller(s) in a good place, mine had to go in the ER.
Both PeterB, and Rebel, have solar. Rebel (John) lives in Perth, boat is/was? in Sydney,he recently fitted 400w of panel to replace a genset and is very approachable. In March he anchored in my bay and was running a fridge with ice cream in it. Try a PM.
In my experience the real panel output is about half the theoretical.

Click to expand...

Hi Bruce!
Chime in anytime mate. You know that I appreciate all the help I can get!

I'll PM ya about your set up.

Cheers mate.

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I am convinced I want to add solar panels to my roof. I am interested on how is the best way to mount the panels on the roof. My roof is a fiberglass roof that is honeycomb cored. Should I install rails? z-brackets? 2x2 starboard beams?

One supplier is suggesting an Outback MPPT controller, another is recommending the Morningstar - any reasons to go one way or the other?

Cheers
Henry

An update for our previously posted plans: We installed 4 120 watt panels with two Morningstar Sunsaver Duo controllers. Two panels are controlled by one controller and charge the start bank and one house bank, The other two panels are controlled by the other controller and charge the other house bank, and will charge the future thruster bank.

We have not been connected to shore power since October 31rst. So far everything is working out fine except I need more batteries. We have 4 Trojan T-105s. I would like to have 4 more.

OR??? A more efficient reefer???

AS the reefer is usually the power hog on most boats.

We have a Vertifrigo fridge that uses 4.8 amps at 12 volts. We use a lot of power for computers and other electronics. On sunny days the panels recharge the batteries pretty quick and then set idle the rest of the day. Then if we have 3 or 4 cloudy days in a row we have to run the generator. More storage capacity would help on those days.

Kudos to you! I can't go two hours without my genny.

Greetings all. I am a recent convert to trawlers after 30+ yrs of sailing. Missing for me in this thread is any mention of evaluating the daily amp hrs you are trying to replace and therefore the daily amp hrs you want to get from your system. You need a lot less energy and therefore a smaller installation to keep the batteries topped off when the boat is not in use or stored than you do when using the boat to its fullest and enjoying your ice cream. Additionally, the size of the area you have available for the installation will impose a restraint to the amount of energy the panels can supply. Evaluating those elements will help guide you to the size and type of installation that makes sense for your boat and how you typically use it.

Missing for me in this thread is any mention of evaluating the daily amp hrs you are trying to replace and therefore the daily amp hrs you want to get from your system.

Cruisers with a SOC meter simply glance at the readout to see how there doing.

Agree. State of Charge meters can help you plan a system and tell you what you are using if you take the time to monitor it over time. It didn't sound like Ian had one at the start of the thread. If you don't have one, you'll be well served to break out the manuals and compute the amp hr demands of key systems, appliances and electronics to decide on solar system capacity.

new technology

Ceramic material for solar panels could make them cheaper, more efficient

A unique solar panel design made with a new ceramic material points the way to potentially providing sustainable power cheaper, more efficiently, and requiring less manufacturing time. It also reaches a four-decade-old goal of discovering a bulk photovoltaic material that can harness energy from visible and infrared light, not just ultraviolet light.

This affordable sun-powered future could be closer than we think thanks to early tests on this new material, which was developed by a team led by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University. The tests were conducted, in part, at the Advanced Photon Source housed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory.

The team created a new class of ceramic materials that has three main benefits. First, it can produce a solar panel that is thinner than today's silicon-based market leaders by using one material to do the work of two. Second, it uses cheaper materials than those used in today's high-end thin-film solar panels. Third, the material is ferroelectric, which means it can switch polarity, a key trait for exceeding the theorized energy-efficiency limits of today's solar cell material.

...more here:
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I need as much solar as I can get

However there will still be times when your bat set is FINALLY at 100% and the sun is still shining.

Best solution for this is a 12V or 24V (system match) element in the HW heater.

Nice to have HW with no engine or noisemaker time.

Hot Water Heaters

...and speaking of hot water heaters, isn't the old style water heater tank a rather inefficient item? Why store hot water all day for one or two uses? Aren't the 'instantaneous hot water heaters' a more efficient why to go?

Sorry for thread drift. Perhaps someone can direct us to a good discussion of this hot water subject ?

As Bruce K wrote in the early stages of this thread I have installed 3x130 panels purchased off ebay on top of my biminy on an aluminum frame and connected to a Morningstar controller which is not an MPPT. As I am away from the boat for extended periods I also have two 20w panels dedicated one each, to the start batteries,a controller connected for each battery.
My experience has been over that time is that with 440ah of house battery I am almost self-sufficient over a 2-3 weeks on the boat running all my appliances which does include a "Nevercold" which after 28years is still running fine although is by far the power hog of all power hogs! I say almost as my BEP battery monitor does shoe that over time my batteries dont come fully to charge until I run the motors which I do as we cruise Sydney Harbour over that period. In other words normal running of any boat over an extended period. In these times we never go into a marina and we are on a swing mooring.
Each time we come back to the boat the batteries are fully charged and we start the process all over again. I am wondering if an MPPT controller may make us more efficient at the collection point and then a wind generator such as Peter B has done or an upgrade to the alternators so they produce the shortfall quicker. I know a replacement refrigerator is possibly the answer but at 2500 here in Aus for the same size and the work required to get the old one out has me shaking at the knees Suggestions would be welcome.

John, 390w of panel don`t fill your batteries. How much battery?
Friends we will soon cruise with have fitted replacement MPPTs, I will see how they work and report. They run a fridge and freezer on a 31ft sailboat(yacht) and need all the amps they can get. They are considering an extra fold up panel paired set(easily found on Ebay), to augment for extended cruising.

440 ah Bruce. I suspect the controller is cutting back on charge for the last part of the charge which gives us a slight deficit over time. We had the 2 grandchildren from Perth with us over Christmas/New Year with their Ipods Tablets etc as well as our own electronics so it was a challenge managing the power but they caught on real quick to charge their devices during the day when there was sun. I will be interested to hear from your real time experience on your friends boat in regards to MPPT controllers.

Solar is down to a dollar a watt. Then add a controller, getting quite reasonable.

Because we can't orient the panels towards the sun, they have to lay flat, sometimes it rains, which cuts the charge even further. Therefore plan about a third more panel capacity than you think you will need. I am planning 5 panels, 500 watts, to start.

Still investigating controllers.

I have been looking at a place in Qualicum Beach - try and Google solar and Q.B. And check them out. With a crappy dollar again you Yanks should do well.

When I was in Port Townsend I had 7 x 260 W panels installed, mostly on a custom built hardtop. Panels are Suniva. Controllers are Outback - needed 2.

Don't bother with low wattage panels, put high wattage, higher voltage ones on. In PT it was easy to have 60 A at +12V (charge voltage...) going into the batteries from the panels, despite them being flat, and inevitably some shading on some of them.

Aren't the 'instantaneous hot water heaters' a more efficient why to go?

In a small low load dirt house , perhaps , on a boat almost never

Take a look at the power requirement for an electric unit , its MASSIVE !! to heat water , so might take most of the noisemaker power while doing dishes or a shower.

The propane units can deliver 75,000 to 150,000 BTU of heat far easier , but some folks have an irrational fear of propane.