Winter solar

[mikegray]

Anyone have any thoughts or experience on using the solar panels to keep the batteries charged over the winter instead of taking them out and putting them on a trickle charger. Where I’ll be storing my boat this winter doesn’t have power. Wondering if the solar panels might do the trick over the winter.

 

[Submariner]

Anyone have any thoughts or experience on using the solar panels to keep the batteries charged over the winter instead of taking them out and putting them on a trickle charger. Where I’ll be storing my boat this winter doesn’t have power. Wondering if the solar panels might do the trick over the winter.

It's possible. But I would shut everything off on the boat aside from the 24x7 fuses.

The issue with winter and solar is sunrise to sunset is 8 hours apart. The sun is low in the horizon (much lower than in summer time) resulting in less yield. Lastly, the weather is often overcast, clouds, rain, further reducing solar output.

I have 420 watts of solar. It would be enough to keep the batteries topped off, but only if I shut off the DC house switch so nothing is running other than bilge pumps.

 

[Martin610]

I shrink wrap my boat when its on the hard. Even so I get 1 to 1.5 amps from the solar.

I swing by the boat every 4 to 6 weeks and top off the batteries. I use a bluetti power station for that.

-martin610

 

[mikegray]

Thanks again for the input. I might give it a shot.

 

[serendipity]

We winter store / shrink-wrap our 2023 R27 luxury edition in New England. While we now have 2 solar panels, last winter we only had one. I visited the boat every 2 - 3 weeks and the batteries were at 100%. However, as Martin advises, I removed the fuses for bilge pumps and propane detector (tanks disconnected, as well). Other non-RT boats in the yard do the same over the winter and experience similar charge results (non-lithium banks usually)