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I'm almost entirely reliant on Solar for power at the moment. Some time ago my solar controller suddenly went into load disconnect mode and has only just started to come out of that mode more recently which is ironic as today is the winter solstice! I realised after a while that this was because they had moved the sun and now my North facing panels couldn't pull down so much energy. This happened last year and I remember the power did come back at some point. A friend of mine reckons they will put the sun back where it should be after a while too. So I'm wondering does anyone have any idea when the sun might be back where it ought to be and my panels will start pulling in the power again. I wish I had taken notes when it happened as then I would know when it might happen again.

Hello hello, Needing some advice about finding a good, but affordable, solution to flat batteries. Bluebell is a little 23' cruiser with a Honda outboard of 9.9 HP. When we were only exploring and moving it on weekends for 5-6 hours a day, the batteries were doing really well, but now that we're back to work and more settled, moving only one day a week/fortnight, we've had problems with the batteries. We have one startup and one leisure. It seems that the startup is too low, so we seem to be running of the leisure battery, which is not working very well (lights dropping intensity and flickering a couple of days after moving the boat). My SO and I are both out of the house from 7/8am to about 9pm, so we haven't been able to let it idle daily. We've tried to counteract it by using the batteries minimally, charging phones at work etc unless in an emergency, only using one light and candles/fairy lights, etc. We don't use any other 12v appliances, so mostly the batteries are powering the water pump and 1-2 LEDs for a couple of hours a day. Anyhow, we've only just bought the boat so are really skint. We want to invest in solar panels, a mains charger, a traction battery, and a generator but dont have the 3odd grand to fund all those purchases at once. What would you all suggest as a first purchase? Considering the cost of a gennie, would solar panels (which are in our planned budget) serve the purpose of getting our batteries back to scratch and maintaining them? Or do we need to invest in a gennie/panels/charger all at once? We've only just bought the boat and spend 2k kitting it out internally, and adding all of the above amounts to the cost of the boat (though I suppose we can take them with us when we leave) so if we can buy these things in stages that would help. Also, we don't have a place to store the gennie unless we build a storage area onto the stern... All of these are worries... Someone suggested transporting the batteries to an on-land friend's house and charging them back up there, but that seems intrusive and difficult and we'd much rather have a long term solution that works. Would be most grateful for any and all advice Thank you, Micha

We're about to have some solar panels installed on our boat. We want mounting brackets that will rotate (manually) as well as tilt. Any suggestions where we can buy them off the shelf or get them made to order? Not interested in expensive tracker units!

This is a question that probably has been answered before, but if it has, I’ve not seen it. We have a Rapido motorhome, with an engine start battery, and one domestic battery. They are linked via a 240 volt battery charger that’s built in to the vehicle, and I’m guessing here, by another circuit so that they are both charged when the engine is running. We want to add a solar charging option, to charge both batteries. Any suggestions of a way to do it, and how much solar panel power to fit?

Ok just about to re-mount my solars that blew off in the recent winds . Due to their size I have decided to mount them solidly flat in order to make them blow proof in future hooleys .. Now looking all over the net lots of retailers of mountings and panels say you should tilt them towards the sun for optimum and an equal amount say dont bother waste of time as you get better overall area if they are flat .. With fear of starting a whole new , Casette or pump out arguement .. whos right ? PS we have a pump out lol ( joke back to topic )

Hi I have a couple of quite large 165 watt solar panels that came with the boat , they were mounted on a home made wooden mount on the roof . during the recent winds they blew off and the mounting was smashed . I am looking to re-mount them in the coming weeks ready for summer and am looking for something both more secure and if possible adjustable . looking at ready made adjustable mounts there are lots around and pics online dont always give a good clue if they will work with my big panels or not . I tried to speak to several solar specialists but they dont want to know without supplying more panels to me . I am not uber practical so looking for a ready made solution really any suggestions or links ? PS : would rather not drill my roof if possible so some thing I can stick down would be best I am thinking

Hi, I'm in the research and money saving phase of getting a narrowboat. I was really confused by all the solar panel options, what they mean, how they compare and how bad it will be if I go with flexible ones. So I've made a simple comparison, basically a fancy spreadsheet. I hope someone will find it useful, please feel free to let me know and suggestions for improvements. TL;DR: Bigger frame panels provide more power per m² and more power per £ spent on them. This is not true for flex panels to such a degree. Power per £ is significantly better in frame models. Frame vs Flex power per m² is about the same (if we ignore angle). TODO: Researching and adding a graph of expected efficiency in UK per month (shade/sun) for flat roof and calculation of gains if someone aims panel twice a day. Adding top down view of boats of different seizes with example roof coverage and possible power gain per type/month. Have a great weekend everyone.