Solar Panels

In your case, my best advice would be, find a well known supplier/installer, it’s not difficult, but mistakes could lead to catastrophes.

That said, I used eMarine at Ft Lauderdale (www.emarineinc.com) as a source for the equipment and advice, and installed three 245 watt Kyocera solar panels, with three Blue Sky MPPT charger controllers, four Trojan L16H-AC batteries and a 5000/10000W inverter.

I did all the installation myself, but had an qualified electrician double checked my work before I started using it.

Whole system about $ 4.000,- ex installation, at Curacao that means a ROI in approx. 3 years.

You need to do the math... If you are up north in the 1000 islands how much power can you really generate? The problem with solar is that the cost just don't add up, no matter how much some elected officials want you to believe... Remember Solyndra?

so, what do you want to use solar panel for? If the boat is on a mooring then yes, you may be able to keep batteries charged but if your boat is kept dockside with shore power, I don't see the point.

If you are planing on using solar panels to keep the batteries charge while anchored out for a few days, again do the math and see how much solar panel you need then compare the costs vs a few gallons of fuel a day to recharge your batteries. I bet it will take years to recoup the costs.

But yeah, you could pat yourself on the back and brag about how green, sensitive etc you are... Most people quickly realize that if you pay for it, it s not worth it. Now if you can get tax dollars grant then it makes some sense...

Like the $70M wind farm the us governemnt is about to fund in... Jamaica man

What our friend above is trying to explain; It's hard for solar power on a boat with more power demand (than a timex watch) to make sense if you're really off the dock long (very long) term then (big then) if your returns will ever come around before maintenance issues (replacing panels, Batteries or power controllers) comes to past..

You probably have witnessed countless ships tied up with all kinds of solar panels rigged all over their ship.
And to hear them brag.
Just realize, you're talking to them, tied up on a dock, sucking up dock power..... Duha....

Power management is not easy or cheap. The first step is to realize the serious need for power management and find a pur$e that can afford it.

Not just for your fridge, count up all the Amp/hours your equipment needs per day, report thee numbers to us here. After the laughter and chatter, real numbers, cost, value will be commented on. it's not as free (or cheap) as the suckers that have already spent their bux$ on tend to lead you.

Please keep us up on your decisions. I luv it when proven wrong with real numbers and not some dock (powered) side dawg wash.
Even I have been proven wro,,, wr,,, w ,,,,,,,, Incorrect before (twice).

,rc

One of th big issues with solar on boats is that for solar to be somewhat efficient you need to have the panels angled toward the sun. Any number you will get from the manufacturer is based on that even though in the real world it s rarely the case

I have a small panel of our sailboat to keep the house battery charged on th mooring, it s about 30w if I remember correctly.it does its job of recharging the battery after we use the boat, running a water pump, some cabin lights, nav lights and phone/iPad chargers. When the panel is more or less facing the sun, the controller shows an average output of a about 1.5 amps for a few hours a day. Remember that is in south Florida. Now, when wind is blowing from the wrong direction on the panel is not facing the sun, output drops to a quarter of an amp...

In our case it s working because of low power requirement but it shows how critical orientation is.

We have an electric inboard on board and I have decided not to bother with solar panels because it just doesnt add up. Instead I bring the boat to the club dock or behind my own boat docked nearby and plug the charger in for a few hours. Cheaper and more practical.

If you look at cruising sailboats, not only do they use very little power but they also have large ugly solar arrays mounted on adjustable racks. They don't use DC fridges but cold plate systems which are cooled by running the engine for a short time daily.

In most locations, wind is probably more efficient and more practical than solar.

Conclusion could be, put enough solar power (wattage) on your boat and have a charger as a backup, using dock power or generator power.

I have a smart charger that (if at dock power) switches on after sundown, and will top of the batteries only if necessary.

When we go out, at night the generator will run the aircons and the charger will top of the batteries if necessary again.

You could combine wind and solar ofcourse!

Since most marinas charge a set rate if hooked to dock electric, I don't see any advantage to adding solar if using dock power. Also, with a gen you're doing it no favor reducing the amount of power you draw. If on a moring it might work out, but you'll get inconsistant results depending which way the boat swings, and that could result in melted ice cream after a few cloudy days.

P.S. I recently had my south facing house check out for solar. It would take me 11 years for my ROI. Can't imagine it being better for a boat that may or may not face the sun.

Oeps, over here they charge you by the meter, that makes a difference, I agree!
For what it’s worth, my solar system makes it possible to be completely independent from shore power, but I realize now, I’m in a different environment/setting!

The question is how much power are you using and what you are powering.

You're not going to run AC on that setup... 3 x 245 amps panels will yield about 250AH on a good day (at 12v). This will probably not even be enough to run a full size fridge/freezer for a day. And you still need to keep your house batteries charged for lights, heads, bilge pumps, etc..

On the other hand, you can do all of that by running your generator for jsut 3 or 4 hours a day recharge the house and inverter bank and run everything for the next 20 hours or so. That's 3 gallons of fuel, under $10 a day...

You ll need $10k worth of panels to do that that s 1000 days on the hook. If you anchor out 100 days a year, you will need 10 years to make up the costs.

So much of energy savings is based on circumstance and especially climate. I remember years ago visiting a laundry in Massachusetts and seeing how they were reclaiming the heat from outgoing water to heat the incoming. However, the same system in the south had no benefit as the incoming water from the city was so much warmer. I've looked repeatedly at solar options on our home and on our boat. Just as with many above we can't get enough on the boat to really support the systems. On our home, we got estimates. Our roof would need a lot of redesign. The quantity of panels would be huge. The estimates had paybacks between 13 and 17 years. That would never have happened though as panel technology would change and you'd be replacing the panels. Right now it works for people like P46. I'm convinced the time will come that it will work for most of us.

I once saw an incredible wind farm in Texas that covers over 100,000 acres. Well, we live in Fort Lauderdale and don't have 100,000 open acres.

Now in the Bahamas utilities can be very expensive. There are some who own islands and rather than attempting to run electricity from the nearest city, they've gone solar and wind and been able to supply their entire needs. Great payback.

It's not to great of payback. A friend uses large solar panels powered with a small Air cooled Deutz diesel genset for backup. A pile of batteries. He uses a bilge pump in his cistern for potable water. Also some lights, modified inverter and DCv driven cold plate box under his house.
Gen-set still has to run for a few hours a week to bring his batteries up to full charge. Partial charged batteries do not last. During this time he can really deep freeze that cold plate.
This set up proved more reliable (not much) that waiting on the propane barge that used to visit weekley (not seen in over a year now). He saw the propane issue coming a few years ago and started building up his solar panels.
My friend has started buying up old skid'd gen-sets as he expands his quarters.
So, I have learned here, even camping out on land, solar still has some shortcomings.

Oh wind generated? Seems to have some issues there also and gave up long ago.

I guess you have to realize, if you need natural power, it comes in short spurts and anything is better than nothing. It's not cheap and usually not a good reliable answer. Payback may never happen. If you have to cruise independent, have lots of money, you will need wind and solar options and/or a power plant with a very good charging system. However, there is usually a dock to find every couple of days that make a good cold plate system look good.

What do you guy's recomend as a solar set-up for someone just looking to keep the batteries topped off while mooring. I am assuming some kind of trickle charging situation?


Thanks!

It's a pretty small boat (by this sites' standards), a '04 SeaRay 320 Sundancer. It runs on 3 12V Deep cycle batteries. I'm not looking to run anything while away from the boat (fridge, etc) or when on board (have a gen-set). I just want to keep the batteries charged to capacity while the boat is sitting unattended.

With that in mind, the amps do not matter I think. Is that correct?

Doubt I'd bother as long as you shut everything down (battery switch off). The only drain on the battery would be your bilge pump. In the odd event that the batteries do run down, just fire up the gen and turn on your charger to recharge the other batteries or keep a power pack in your car. Keep in mind that a temporary solution could blow off or be stolen, and then must be stowed while underway. A permanent solution may get stepped on or otherwise get in the way, covered by dung, and will look a bit odd on a boat like yours.

Good points, I was hoping there was something small that I could perminantly attach to the top of the Radar arch and would blend in with the small top portion of the canvas that doesn't get taken down.

Isn't it better for the life of the batteries to keep them topped off all the time? I'm not thinking of a cost savings, more of a time saving aspect.

The best thing you can do for your batteries is the same thing you need to do to keep the rest of it running well, i.e. make sure to run the boat every couple of weeks.

Yes, I probably need to run her more. Not becasue we are not out on the boat often, pretty much every weekend, but because we don't go that far or fast. We spent yesterday anchored off Asharoken Beach, Northport. But it seems like you need to crawl most of the way there from our Gold Star Beach moorning.

Still new to the area, but I was completely in the channel three weeks ago when I was pulled over and told that they are trying to "protect the channel" so you can't go up on a plane there.