It's not the solar panels that are holding you back it is the battery system that needs to be real big to handle your needs at night.
Even on sunny days if you had a 3kw system you would only get that much output for a few hours tops. The rest of the daylight would only yield a portion of the total system wattage. To get your 3kw all day long would require a system many times the size of the 3kw. Your house boat will not be big enough to mount them all.
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Thanks for the chop busting but that's why i'm here. Let me ask the question a different way. What would it take to provide 3Kw on sunny days, in the summer from mid may to early september. We don't care about the other months or cloudy days. That's what the generator is there for. From what I've seen, folks in similar lattitudes are getting 1-1.2 KW per panel per day, on sunny days on their grid tie systems. is off grid systems that much more inefficient? I an here to learn so chop busting is fine with me. Thanks for your help.Leave a comment:
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Steve sorry to bust your chops but what you propose is not going to give you 3 Kwh/day usage. You do not have enough of anything to come close to that.
For example if you were to use the T-105's, which is a horrible choice for this, will take 12 of them to give you 3 Kwh/day, and a minimum of 1500 watts in solar panels to support the batteries and generate a minimum of 3 Kwh/day usable energy. Sorry guy no point in answering your questions as you are not even close.Leave a comment:
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Solar package review for Houseboat- feedback and suggestions please
Hi guys,
I have done a fair amount of internet research on solar for RV's and Boats over the past few months and am embarking on an install of a system for a houseboat. This forum has been a wealth of information and damn funny to read too (you know who you are....)!
Our daily requirement is about 3000 watt hours mostly from the usual suspects: microwave, coffee maker, cabin lights, water system pump and cell phone charging. I am looking at the following setup:
3 Sharp 235 watt panels (B grade panels, 90 day warranty at .85/watt)
Morningstar TS-RM-2 remote meter
Morningstar TS-60-MPPT controller, controller breakers (with box), mc4 extension for the string of panels, a combiner box (with string breakers), and 10/2 cable for running from the combiner to the controller
4 Costco golf cart batteries
Xantrex PROWatt 2000 Inverter
This will be added to the existing 2 trojan 105's ( 6volt wired in series)
The boat has a generator and shore power which is not used as the dock has no shore power.
Background info:
Boat is located at Lake Shasta, California and is primarily used in the summer months where days are in the 90's and sun is available all day from 9 am (we park facing eastern shore) to 8PM. Winter use is almost non-existent.
I have several questions:
1. is the system sized appropriately to provide the required daily power needs? is the ratio of panels wattage to battery storage sized correctly? Can we get by with two panels instead of 3?
2. is there a way to power the inverter with 24V while supplying the boats systems with 12 volt using the same bank of batteries?
3. Is the extra cost of the MPPT controller cost effective when compared to a PWM controller at 1/3rd the cost
4. is it prudent to add new batteries to the existing batteries (2 years old not babied)
5. is it possible to add an automatic transfer switch that shuts down the inverter when the generator is started? if so, what switch do you recommend? I am not worried about shorepower as it is never used and we will put a big sign on the receptacle just in case.
6. are Sharp B grade panels reliable? the warranty is very short but the dealer claims that they have never had a warranty claim or return on the Sharp panels.
sorry for the 64 questions, Thank you in advance for your feedback.
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