Solar panel installation

Hi Everyone

Here is an update to my solar installation. In a nutshell...

1. I have two banks to charge. Inverter bank is 24 volt and 440 amp hours of brand new Gel Batts. I also have a DC House Bank of 400 amp hours at 12 volt.
2. I installed 1000 watts of 41 volt solar panels for the Inverter bank regulated by a 40 amp plasmatronics PL40. The House bank is charged by a single 200 watt 41 volt panel regulated by a 30 amp regulator.

Today was the first day in operation. At 9am on an end of winters day in southern queensland whilst overcast and sun poking through in intervals, i ran the boat with the shore power switched off and the inverter on. I am running two freezers (200l domestic upright and a waeco 150l chest on 240v) and a 300l domestic fridge plus dishwashers with tvs etc on standby. I am drawing 14 amps. My Inverter panels are producing 13 amps on average. My 12 volt panel is at 3 amps.

I am happy with that so far and by the time the sky clears and we get towards the peak times in the day i shall check them for output. But so far so good. Essentially at 14 amps from the inverter panels at this early stage of the day is taking care of immediate needs. I could probably shut down a freezer and turn the thermostat on the fridge up a bit to reduce load significantly.

Here are some photos.

Keep us informed on this as a great many of us are either doing or planning systems. There's so much equipment out there it's difficult to choose. Mind if I ask what brand of panel you went with?

I bought the Trina brand of panels. Made in China but are the second largest producer of panels globally. They are the panels most used in Aus for home installations. Many of our houses are solar powered now. So i was confident in a proven product.

Bohans said:

I bought the Trina brand of panels. Made in China but are the second largest producer of panels globally. They are the panels most used in Aus for home installations. Many of our houses are solar powered now. So i was confident in a proven product.

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Bohans

thanks for sharing do you mind giving links to products you bought online etc

thanks in advance!!!

I bought them off a retailer in Brisbane off Ebay. They sell a lot of them.

Here is their site. Cut Price Solar | Wholesale Prices – Upgrade Specialists

Thanks

Bo
Thanks for the update. About as expected? On good days you will do better than meet consumption during daylight hours. But night draws will likely mean you will need the genny to supplement. Sure you can do some power management, such as not leaving things on standby, provided everyone on board assists but an amp-hour deficit is still likely for most 24 hour periods. Or so it seems with my set-up.

Power management. In the 110 volt world of North America we have an inexpensive device called "Kill-A-Watt" which can be used to measure the power draw of any appliance/device over a period of time. I was surprised at the electricity used by our TV and microwave when they were turned off. This is referred to as the phantom or vampire draw. This has led me to install separate on and off switches at a number of devices so that this phantom draw is eliminated. My clock in the microwave is no longer accurate and my TV and computer no longer turn on instantly but my power usage is down.

Yes, I've used both 240V AC and 12V DC version of your 'kill a watt' device to track down power hogs. It led my to ditch a refer in my Pilothouse in favour of an Engel I already had at home that used half the amp-hours per 24 hour period. And to use the Icemaker to make a bag full of ice to store in a freezer that was running anyway, then turn the icemaker off until I needed more ice. And to turn the Satellite dish off if anchored and not wanting to watch TV eg when sleeping.

And I can tell you that I need 1.3 AH to make a coffee with my Nespresso machine. And 22 AH for the breadmaker to make a loaf of bread. Nothing quite like using these gizmos to get real world 24 hour power consumption.

Today, with full batteries this morning 9am when I pulled from shore power, till I reattached shore power at 5pm, I collected 90 amp hours. This met my running needs for the day with two freezers, fridge, tvs on standby, water pressure and a big beer fridge. My shore power charger is only 30 amp Victron unit. One day I will bump this up, but till then, I save minimum of 3 hours on the genset when at anchor.

My next test is to run all the gear over night then see what I put in during daylight hours when the batteries are depleted somewhat.

Shall keep the update going if interested.

thanks for comments so far.

Yes please keep us updated also how was cloud cover today?

Bohans said:

Today, with full batteries this morning 9am when I pulled from shore power, till I reattached shore power at 5pm, I collected 90 amp hours. This met my running needs for the day with two freezers, fridge, tvs on standby, water pressure and a big beer fridge. My shore power charger is only 30 amp Victron unit. One day I will bump this up, but till then, I save minimum of 3 hours on the genset when at anchor.

My next test is to run all the gear over night then see what I put in during daylight hours when the batteries are depleted somewhat.

Shall keep the update going if interested.

thanks for comments so far.

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Good point about starting with fully charged batteries. If you start with some depletion from overnight use then your daylight collection will be somewhat higher. I'm certainly interested in your updates, keep 'em coming.

I've installed four 325 watt panels above my flybridge bimini on the Delta Swizzler that I acquired from Northern Arizona Solar back in March before we left the SF Bay area, to support an 1800 amp hour battery bank. My batteries are at float every day by noon and our longest stretch off the dock so far has been six weeks. I still fire up the genset to run the washer, dryer, vacuum, and hot water heaters every few days, even then I turn off the charger function on the battery chargers. If anyone is planning to spend time on the hook or just hates to pay the dock utilities, this is a valid option.
Plus the flybridge is much cooler under the solar panels, I expect they will allow my canvas to live a few more years and you get a federal tax credit of 30%...winner. not at the dock in San Diego, I leave the dock power off, unless I need to run one of the devices listed above..love my solar

Bo
How are the panels performing? I assume that by now you will have had a variety of conditions to measure output and am curious as to an average day's Ah generation.

Once the house batts are full , any extra solar can be applied to the hot water heater element.

A good switch setup will allow the AC to be disconnected and the solar DC used.

Is not fast , but if there is a power excess , at least it is used.

Thanks Insequent for the message.
as an update. I will find out more next week as we take the boat out of the marina on a trip for a few weeks off shore power. But so far I have seen the following based on a trial where we disconnected shore power for 24hours.

the 200 watt 12 volt regulated panel feeds into a 400 amp hour bank at 12 volts. The panel peaks at delivering between 7-8 amps during the middle of the day for about 2 hours. Over the course of the day I receive about 45-50 amp hours back into the bank.

the 24 volt regulated panels feed the 24 volt inverter bank and these peak at about 30 amps during the middle of the day. I am unsure exactly what I het over the whole day but it is at least 160 amp hours.

shall see what happens over the next few weeks.

I plan to run the genset for an hour a day anyway so will get a charger top up each day also.

I think I will have all my needs covered with this set up.

Insequent, are you heading to Moreton? We will be around the Lucinda bay area from about the 22nd for a couple of days, then Brisbane for Christmas then back out on 26th to either Lucinda bay or stradbroke Deanbilla bay. Was hoping to find a way to get to Kooringal but do not know way in there yet and depths at high tide. Has anyone been in there before?

thanks

bo

Bohans:


Your large 1,000 watt, 24 volt panel bank is delivering about what I would expect. My rule of thumb is a 1000 watt panel will deliver 333 amp hours at 12 V on a sunny day. Your 160 AH at 24 volts is very close to that value in watt hours delivered.


Your 200 watt panel is doing somewhat worse than that rule of thumb. Does it have a PWM controller maybe?


David

yes I work on halving the watts (to get to 50% efficiency) and dividing by voltage. I think the 200watt panel should pump about 8 amps at peak out put. I have seen up to 7.4 so is very close. I see that at between 11:30 am and 1:30pm on a cloudless day. I will give the panels a quick clean as I noticed the are dusty and dirty.

Bo
Seems your 24v ones are doing the job nicely.

My solar setup needs modification as 2 panels get shaded a lot, and even a third one can suffer a bit as well. Nonetheless, I did get just over 500 Ah one day at anchor recently. I have 7 panels, 260W at 12V. The 4 best postioned panels gave 340 Ah while the other 3 gave just 160 Ah. (I have two Outback 80 Flexmax installed)

At present I'm dirtside at Port Macquarie. I will be dirtside around Xmas and in late Jan but will be doing short trips into the Bay as often as I can, with destinations being wind-direction dependent.

Deanbilla is pretty good with any E in the wind and of course with N in the wind Horseshoe Bay is nearby and is great, albeit a bit crowded at times. Deanbilla is mud/seagrass bottom, some anchors will not set there. As I found out. But switching to my Sarca Excel, no problems at all.

I have not been into Kooringal. Very limited area for larger boats there. Water depths are quite shallow. It tends to fill up with anchored trailer boats for folks with cabins there, particularly at holiday times. I might try it out-of-season next year. You have to enter from the south. From the north its RIB/runabout only, and at 3/4 tide.

One place I use a lot is Little Sandhills. It can have a lot of boats, but is a large area so it can cope. Except with W in the wind direction, and even due N, it is one of the better places to be. Further north and you get effected by current and can be partly beam on to the swell/wake from ships entering and leaving Port of Brisbane. Tangalooma suffers from all these effects and is not all that enjoyable overnight except when there are very light winds.