My RV solar system.

BFL13 wrote:

EsoxLucius wrote:
I truly don't understand the system performance implications of five 100 watt, 17.7 Vmpp, 5.7A Impp panels in a parallel configuration of 17.7 volts and 28.5 amps versus a series configuration with 88.5 volts and 5.7 amps. Obviously, they would require differing controller capabilities, but what defines "better" and "more powerful"?

Post #5 in this thread has some info on that. Also the one on shading effect. Looks like the fatter wire works with parallel.

http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/27304630.cfm

It appears the test between parallel and series configurations used the same 90 feet of cable so the parallel (lower voltage) configuration was at a distinct disadvantage. If cable losses were kept to less than 2% for both scenarios I wonder if the differences in "power to battery" would be as great. The test revealed an 11.2% increase in "power to battery" with the series over the parallel configurations. Conclusion in post #10 might suggest that with proper cable size there is likely less difference. There are tradeoffs between varying system objectives.