Solar Panels (why are people going small?)
I read thru the forums, and it looks like every one is buying 4 100 watt panels............ Why not just get 300 watt panels? I have a 40 foot RV............. Is it possibly to go COmpletely off grid...
Forum Discussion
To a very large extent, it all depends on your expected usage, and what sorts of compromises are going to have to be made. Unfortunately, solar is also one of those areas where accurate information tends to be hard to come by as many make some pretty wild statements as to how much energy harvest you can expect etc. Sort of like figuring out how good of gas mileage you can expect based on forum responses. Some will have you thinking you can get 20mpg with a certain chip etc...
Higher wattage panels tend to be physically larger. Finding the space to position it on your roof might be an issue, keeping in mind that shading even a very small amount of the panel reduces the output significantly. My RV roof has 2 full profile Air Conditioning units, a couple vents, TV antenna etc that cause issues over much of the roof at different times of the day, sun angles etc.
You'll also want to research different types of controllers and parallel vs series configurations. Larger panels require mppt controllers which can add some benefit in a series configuration but have some downfalls in certain parallel configs. Picking the right tool for how you want to configure your system involves compromises that you have to work out for your situation.
Higher wattage panels tend to be physically larger. Finding the space to position it on your roof might be an issue, keeping in mind that shading even a very small amount of the panel reduces the output significantly. My RV roof has 2 full profile Air Conditioning units, a couple vents, TV antenna etc that cause issues over much of the roof at different times of the day, sun angles etc.
You'll also want to research different types of controllers and parallel vs series configurations. Larger panels require mppt controllers which can add some benefit in a series configuration but have some downfalls in certain parallel configs. Picking the right tool for how you want to configure your system involves compromises that you have to work out for your situation.
