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teemyob

Hello,

At noon on a sunny may day I am getting around 8-9 amps out of 2 x 80w BP Solar panels in The UK

Does this sound okay?

Trev.

Vennwood

Well some 6 months have past since my last look at this thread so here is my update having spent a couple of months in Italy and South of France during Jan and Feb.

To recap, I fitted 2 x 130w Kyocera panels and throughout last summer they worked fine, providing me with around 95% of our power needs. Remember we use a 240 volt only freezer that is switched on 24/7 in addition to kettle, toaster, Microwave etc. so we were well pleased.

During the winter we decided not to use the freezer as that would be asking too much. We noticed that in UK the panels were producing on average around 10 amps per day with many days giving less than 5 amps - not very encouraging. In Italy we could manage around 15 days before resorting to the gennie, on moving up into South of France (and a month later) we found that we were producing 50+ amps per day and we were begining to become self sufficient again.

What does this all mean to us? Well for sure fixed solar panels work throughout the year IF you travel south. Winter camping in this country, flat panels are not the answer. Maybe the Alden Phenix would be better If you spend a fair number of days in UK in winter then for my money if I was contemplating paying out around £1700 for the Phenix then I would probably go for the Efoy Fuel Cell at around the same price as even the Phenix is next to useless in cloudy/rainy weather (and we get a lot of those in UK during the winter) while the Efoy plods away day and night oblivious of the weather. Just my opinion...

davesport

Teemyob.

See my post

teemyob

Thanks for that Dave.

Trev.

Vennwood

Hi Davesport,

Very impressive output. When you say directly into the sun - were they tilted towards the sun or flat on the roof? How many amps are they producing per day? Certainly during a clear sunny day in March around midday, the output of the Kyocera panels will creep up to around 10amps - the problem is that it doesn't last long enough to really top up the batteries. During the summer months the Kyoceras produce over 100+ amps per day with just under 15 amps showing on the regulator for several hours. They still produced 4 amps in the early evening

I guess my comments are more along the lines that the sun don't shine that much in Jan/Feb or even March. How much power do they generate when its raining with dark clouds above?-

Pete

davesport

Hi Pete.

Yes the panels were off the van prior to fitting & aimed directly at the sun. IE perpendicular to the suns radiation. It was a clear day & I'd flattened the batteries a bit the previous night to give the panels a bit of work to do. In terms of output IE Amps per day, I've no idea. The Hymer control panel only displays the batteries status in terms of voltage & how much current is being drawn/put back by solar/alternator/hook-up.

The charging current generally does'nt get as high as it did in the picture I took because the batteries in normal use are less discharged. Also the panels are now mounted flat on the roof.

I tested the two panels side by side prior to wiring them up to the van. One aimed directly at the sun, the other placed randomly on a flat surface as it would be on the van's roof. The optimised panel produced over 110% more current in the same conditions than the one lying flat on the ground. Shocked

Anecdotaly, the batteries (2 * 85 AH hr) so far have never been anything less than fully charged by the time we start making demands on them in the evening. This included a day where son number two went in the huff & watched the telly from morning till night while we went out.

Dave.

Vennwood

Thanks Dave,

Let's hope we get a decent summer so they can really earn their money

Pete