Solar question - Canada

Chief RA · May 12, 2015

First, freezer and refer both on and solar powered in your area is not very practical. My rough estimate is 800 watts of solar panel power. Chief

ALNims · May 12, 2015

Have you considered installing a generator?

Chief RA · May 12, 2015

He can't run a gen. enough hours, plus the fuel up there is even higher than ours. Take the frozen stuff home and just run the refer or viceversa and then you could make it with about 400 watts of solar. Thats doable on a boat the size of yours if you stern mount the panels in the clear. Doing it yourself you might do it for about $1200US. Chief

Bob 04 H260 · May 12, 2015

I put one solar panel on our H356 this past Jan. in Florida. It is a Kyocera, (https://www.emarineinc.com/Kyocera-325-Watt-Solar-Panel-Fixed-Frame-KD325GX-LFB325W, )with a Rogue controller.

We were living on the boat. We have a different set up than you have for our fridge and freezer (top loading and just one compressor). Our energy budget is 85 to 125 Ahr per day.

We mounted the panel behind the arch, it overhangs the Bimini a bit. I used a home made frame using 1" S/S tubing, and off the shelf fittings. Once it was all completed I drilled each connection and put in a S/S pop rivet.

We have 4x110 Ahr AGMs, watch them with a Victron battery monitor.

We seldom had a shadow on our panel with it mounted there, and no back stay, radar tower etc.

In Florida in January the sun sets quite early, by 6:30 it's dark. In Ottawa you will get a lot more hours of sunshine in the summer.

Usually each morning (LED anchor light and most cabin lights) we would be down to 85 to 90 % SOC, that is to say we used about 40 Ahr overnight. If it was sunny we were at 100% SOC by noon hour. At that point we would plug in laptops, iPads etc to charge them up with the extra electrons.

I think one reason it worked so well was the charge controller. It was expensive but is very efficient and smart. I think the one big panel allows the controller to optimize the energy transfer and having a 40 volt output from the panel helps as well.

I would be happy to sit down over a beer and discuss further if you are interested in more details. Bob

Chief RA · May 13, 2015

Nice info Bob, you very aptly substantuated my rough estimate for him. That sounds like a nice setup. Chief

Bob 04 H260 · May 13, 2015

Thanks Chief.....

Out of personal interest I just looked up hours of daylight Jan/Feb in West Palm Beach, 10.5 to 11 hrs vs Ottawa May/Aug 14 to 15 hrs. There will also be a difference in angle for the two locations. If the boat is slipped shadows from other boats masts or rigging could be a bigger factor.

We found if 3 out of 4 days were sunny we did not have to run our generator or engine. We got a northern front about once a week in the early winter. A day with heavy overcast cut our harvest for that day by about 50%. As we were usually moving around we only had to run our generator for an hour once to charge the batteries. My original plan was that we would run our generator for an hour each morning if we were not going to run the Yanmar that day. This way the solar panel would bring the AGMs up to 100% during the day. I was very surprised to see the panel able to handle almost all our power needs. There were a few days the batteries did not get to 100% but did get caught up the next day. We only put 2 hrs on the generator in 4 months of living aboard !

While cruising we found we did not usually need to plug into a marina for power when we went into a slip. They often changed a flat $20 per day for transient power so it adds up and helps to justify the cost of the solar system.

Bob

Chief RA · May 13, 2015

Bob: I have been involved with solar for 35+ years and even now it still fascinates me that the panels produce an output with no sun! Bodega Bay is overcast many days of the year and when we are over there the panels keep up most of the time anyway. I have 2 ea 80w panels and 200 a/h bank. My system works so well I use my outboard as my generator on the rare occasions I need to. Greatest power demand is the DC refer at only .7a avg per hr. Chief

py26129 · May 13, 2015

While I have not done any power consumption measurements per se, I do have some empirical evidence that may help.

Our Set-up: Located in Montreal, Adler Barbour fridge / freezer, 11 cubic foot icebox compartment, original insulation form manufacturer (1985), 2 Walmart group 27 batteries, 140W Kyocera Solar panel, Morningstar Prostar PS2 charge controller.

With the above setup, we are essentially self sufficient, from an energy perspective. On our annual 3 week jaunt into the 1000 Islands and Lake Ontario we never need to plug in. Even during cloudy days we still get some charge out of the panels as long as the over cast is not too heavy.

YMMV

Cheers

Matt

Stu Jackson · May 13, 2015

Chief RA said:
........ even now it still fascinates me that the panels produce an output with no sun!

I still get sunburned when it's cloudy.

My solar Nicro fans still work when it's cloudy.

What's the big surprise???

Just kiddin'...

ALNims · May 13, 2015

Bob,
Thank you for this interesting information. I was wondering what you are using for air conditioning?

Bob 04 H260 · May 13, 2015

ALNims said:
Bob,
Thank you for this interesting information. I was wondering what you are using for air conditioning?

You are welcome, I'm glad you found the information useful.

We have the factory air in our boat. It runs off of the 3.5 KW generator or shore power when we are in a slip. We live on the boat in Florida or Bahamas in the winter months. So we have not had to use the AC very much.

We found on a mooring or the anchor we usually have a breeze. We find it much more comfortable than in a slip. I made a Sunbrella shade for the two hatches and the two large fixed ports, they made a big difference in keeping the cabin temps reasonable on a sunny day.

When we used the AC it was usually when it was hot, we were in a slip, we had to go out and leave our dog on board and close up the boat.

If we were going to use the boat in Florida in the summer months we would really need to use the AC.

I hope that answers your question, Bob

Bob 04 H260 · May 14, 2015

PKFK said:
Thanks for the useful info guys. It is always good to get "field" data on the setups. Bob - a beer discussion sounds good. We launch Friday this week at BYC - so after that I will ping you to discuss. (We are considering a move to your club - hence the solar questions). My wife insists that you bring the dog for any such discussions though ! Paul

Paul, we would be happy to discuss further over a brew ! Charles is looking forward to it as well, he misses not living on a sailboat.

Bob

Solar question - Canada

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