6x12 cell Panels? ~37V Vmp?
Last year I installed in parallel a couple of 6x12 cell, 36.7Vmp, 195W, mono panels and have been very happy with them. They were only 32" wide so fit perfectly along the rear of the trailer. Anything...
Forum Discussion
After further web surfing and several phone calls, I found another source for panels in Southern Ontario (Solar Trader Inc. in Burlington) and got a Canadian Solar 72 cell Mono 300W panel for Can$300.
Thanks to JimInDenver's experience and advice, I stuck to mono panels and 72 cells to match the original panels.
The CS6X-300M panel's Vmp is 36.5V, compared to Sunny Power's Vmp=36.7, and the Voc is 45.0 versus 44V.
Hopefully these #'s indicate the two panels are close enough electrically for the MPPT controller to do its optimization.
With a total of 700W, I'll now exceed the max 30A of my Rogue MPPT controller on bright sunny days with no shade. It won't harm the controller but the energy will be wasted (unless I go to a 24V battery bank).
But that doesn't matter at this point, as our daily energy usage is currently low enough that the existing 400W can fully recharge the batteries on bright sunny days. The problem is rainy, grey days and/or shady sites, especially in the shorter days of fall, winter and spring.
No solar energy will be wasted on grey days as the max 30A will never be exceeded. And the additional panel will be mounted in parallel far from the other two and so provide greater overall chance of one of the panels avoiding shade.
North Ontario Prov. Parks and Smoky Mountains N.P. here we come.
But first I have to get the new panel up on the roof. This thing is quite a bit bigger than the old panels: 39"x77" versus 32"x63".
By the way, Solar Trader Inc. seems to be a reasonable supplier and were very helpful. With the recent reductions in Ontario subsidies for solar tie-ins, a lot of their business has been with off-grid installations, so they stock batteries, inverters and so on as well. Only problem seems to be that they don't keep their web-site up-to-date. You really need to phone them to find out what's available.
Thanks to JimInDenver's experience and advice, I stuck to mono panels and 72 cells to match the original panels.
The CS6X-300M panel's Vmp is 36.5V, compared to Sunny Power's Vmp=36.7, and the Voc is 45.0 versus 44V.
Hopefully these #'s indicate the two panels are close enough electrically for the MPPT controller to do its optimization.
With a total of 700W, I'll now exceed the max 30A of my Rogue MPPT controller on bright sunny days with no shade. It won't harm the controller but the energy will be wasted (unless I go to a 24V battery bank).
But that doesn't matter at this point, as our daily energy usage is currently low enough that the existing 400W can fully recharge the batteries on bright sunny days. The problem is rainy, grey days and/or shady sites, especially in the shorter days of fall, winter and spring.
No solar energy will be wasted on grey days as the max 30A will never be exceeded. And the additional panel will be mounted in parallel far from the other two and so provide greater overall chance of one of the panels avoiding shade.
North Ontario Prov. Parks and Smoky Mountains N.P. here we come.
But first I have to get the new panel up on the roof. This thing is quite a bit bigger than the old panels: 39"x77" versus 32"x63".
By the way, Solar Trader Inc. seems to be a reasonable supplier and were very helpful. With the recent reductions in Ontario subsidies for solar tie-ins, a lot of their business has been with off-grid installations, so they stock batteries, inverters and so on as well. Only problem seems to be that they don't keep their web-site up-to-date. You really need to phone them to find out what's available.
