Walk on Semi flexible solar panels

[reg]

19 hours ago, jddevel said:

What sort of intrigues me is they seem to be portable. When winterized roll up and take home maybe.

2 points

. If you roll them up and take them home then they won't be topping up your batteries. 

. If they are not stuck down then what's to stop some one else rolling them up and taking them home. 

I see no benefits at all with these. 

[jddevel]

Trying to learn about owning a leisure narrowboat- nearly finished a sailaway but 12v no experience so sharp learning curve. Your comments noted though. Cheers 

[markeymark]

From my experience, Unisolar are the best around...being triple amorphous silicon they generate more than mono or poly crystaline panels and I had some on my house in Northern Spain (UK climate) and 192 watts did my whole house (no TV, washing machine or fridge). The panels are mega.strong and were walked on from time to time and still functioned. Not sure why the company went bust many years ago and am amazed that Bimble and Midsummer can still access them.

I do have a question however now being on a liveaboard. At present my batteries are charged from the engine but if I attach a panel to charge the batteries at the same time then the charge controller doesnt like it. Would it be better to put in some kind of isolation switch so that the 2 systems (alternator and panel) dont compete?

 

[WotEver]

1 hour ago, markeymark said:

I do have a question however now being on a liveaboard. At present my batteries are charged from the engine but if I attach a panel to charge the batteries at the same time then the charge controller doesnt like it. Would it be better to put in some kind of isolation switch so that the 2 systems (alternator and panel) dont compete?

No need. If the batteries are in bulk then both charge sources (PV & Alt) will be working flat out. If in absorption then the source with the highest voltage wins with the other source possibly shutting down. It does no harm. 

[reg]

9 hours ago, markeymark said:

From my experience, Unisolar are the best around...being triple amorphous silicon they generate more than mono or poly crystaline panels and I had some on my house in Northern Spain (UK climate) and 192 watts did my whole house (no TV, washing machine or fridge). The panels are mega.strong and were walked on from time to time and still functioned. Not sure why the company went bust many years ago and am amazed that Bimble and Midsummer can still access them.

Just to partially answer your question regarding Unisolar here's a quote from the provided link

"While US Solar Installers are making Hay while the Chinese Solar Panel Companies flood the world with super cheap solar modules,Western solar manufacturers are being killed at an astounding rate.The second biggest thin film solar panel company in the US United Solar Ovonic has gone belly up.The company was fighting a losing batter as the more efficient crystalline solar panel prices went below its production cost.The company had tried to fight in a the niche of BIPV solar panel market but could not survive."

http://www.greenworldinvestor.com/2012/02/16/oldest-us-solar-panel-producer-uni-solar-ovonic-goes-belly-up/

 

I do remember Midsummer writing an article sometime ago,  which I can no longer find,  stating that they had established links with the original Unisolar manufacturing resource and so would be able to maintain a supply.