With gale force winds on the forecast for tomorrow, and more stormy weather after that today was the day to bring in the solar panels for the season and store them for the winter so that they will be in good shape to start next years boating season.

The solar panels did well this season generating over 242 kWh in 5 months since the initial install in April. Generating on average about 1.6KwH per day, and keeping our house battery bank topped off from April to September with no shore power available where we dock.

Now that we have made it through the season, I reflect back on some of the good and bad aspects to our solar install that we had this season.

Good: Our house batteries were well charged and ready to go all season even with no shore power at our regular docking location. We have had the refrigerator on board running since April constantly running off the house batteries continually being charged by solar.

Bad: The initial install of the solar panels was a bit lopsided on the pilothouse roof. Next year we will do a better job.

Good: The positioning of the solar panels was out of the way and did not prohibit any use of areas on board.

Bad: I fried on of the MPPT controllers during the original install by hooking up the + and – connections the wrong way. I won’t do that again.

Good: We have everything we need for next year to get connected quickly. We probably need to re-order some of the suction cups that we used to mount the solar panels and they are too warn out to install again next year.

Overall I am very happy with the solar panels that we used this year, and I look forward to the spring when I put them back into service.