Wednesday, August 16, 2023

New solar panels... and what to do with the old ones?

I absolutely LOVE solar panels: we get power flowing into our batteries without the noise or vibration of wind power or that plus the stink of an engine, My biggest gripe is shading: if a single little rectangle of a panel is shaded, it is as if the entire panel is shaded.... just like one low battery in a flashlight. Our old system had two big 265watt panels and, when sailing, BOTH were often shaded. After much contemplation and studying shading patterns, I replaced them with a slightly larger array of eight 100watt panels which SHOULD give me about twice as much power. I made the final connections in the gray dawn today and look forward to improved performance. 

Here is a photo of one new array and one old panel, Provincetown in the background:


Now comes the tricky bit: storing the old. We have two perfectly functional old panels, but it turns out that we can't even fit them into our cabin to store them to give away, the best we can do is putting them in the cockpit... and I HATE having excess on board. SO.... at Cynthia's suggestion, we posted them for free on Facebook marketplace yesterday and got several takers in a few hours. Today we will load them across the gunwales of the dinghy, Cynthia stabilizing them while I row, and make our way to shore to give them away. I'll be delighted to see them gone and going to someone who, I hope, will have fun making use of them.

Of course, Monty will miss them... 


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