The Power of Solar
Guest author: Captain Dudley
New solar panels installed on dinghy davits, with small gas springs if needed to tilt panels for easier access to dinghy or for better sun angle.
Imagine never paying a dime to a local power company. That is how we feel with our new solar panels. We now have six panels, four on top of the bimini and two above the dinghy davits. Together they produce 30-40 amps in full sun, enough to power all our appliances and devices as well as recharge the batteries from any drain the previous night.
Red circles denote three areas where solar panels are mounted.
Our three refrigeration devices, one refrigerator and two freezers, are our largest power draw. The next largest power draw is our inverter that converts 12v battery current to 120v AC. We run the inverter periodically during the day to charge our computers and other small items. Otherwise, we turn it on when needed to run the coffee machine, microwave, or other single-use devices. All our lights are LED, including our anchor light, so they draw very few amps as do the circulating fans. At night, the refrigeration units consume about 10% of our battery capacity, but by the end of each day, the batteries are back up to 100% using solar.
Newest solar panels on hard bimini are in foreground.
What about hot water, air conditioning, and heating? There are three ways to heat our 11-gallon hot water tank: running the engine, running the generator, or running the hydronic heating system. The hydronic system consists of a small boiler (18” x 9” x 8”) that uses diesel to heat anti-freeze that runs through pipes inside the hot water tank and through four fan-powered vents located throughout the boat. During the summer, the valve is set to run through only the hot water tank, which takes 15 minutes to heat.
Generally, we don’t use air conditioning or electric heating unless we are at a dock. But if we need to, or we need to top off the batteries, we turn on our 6500-watt generator.
Solar: it’s prevalent, it’s cheap, and it provides 95% of our power needs. It’s really awesome to be living off the grid!
Screenshot from Dudley’s phone where he monitors solar production.
Final note for our readers who are techies: We have the four panels on the bimini wired in parallel to one Victron MPPT controller and the two panels on the dinghy davits wired in series to another MPPT controller. Together they produce 3 kWh on a sunny day and about 60-70% of that on cloudy days.