Caravan Solar Panels How Do They Work

Solar panels come in various shapes and sizes to suit any caravan camper or rv.

Caravan solar panels how do they work.

They re a boon for off gridders too providing enough current to keep your leisure battery charged when you have no hook up. They never do and here s why. Benefits of caravan and motorhome solar panels free electricity once you ve paid for the panels all the electricity they generate is free. In the past you had to screw brackets to the roof of your caravan to fit a solid panel and many people understandably didn t want to make such modifications.

The club has another data sheet looking after your leisure battery to help you do this. The power generated by a solar panel is direct current dc so if you want to use it to power something that would normally plug into a home style three pin 230v socket you ll need to convert it to alternating current ac. Photovoltaic solar panels are covered in a thin layer of silicon. Our particular caravan has 450 watts of solar panels mounted on the roof and in perfect conditions can theoretically output up to 30 amps.

So at 6 65 amps for 8 hours a 120w solar panel can potentially deliver 53 2ah of chargeback into our battery 6 65amps x 8hours 53 2ah. When mounting the solar panels on the roof of a caravan it is a good idea to get this done by a professional as they are subject to a lot of movement and high. So to sum up solar panels are very effective and relatively cheap easy to use and eco friendly. A solar panel is made from solar cells different solar cells can produce a different number of watts from a given surface area.

We recently upgraded our solar charger to a redarc bms 1230s battery manager. Whether or not the panels provide all the electricity you need at the very least you ll be paying less for electric hook ups or generator fuel. They can be portable or mounted. This is particularly important for the limited mounting surfaces available on a caravan or motorhome.

So you might wonder how does this translate into real world experience. A solar panel is only going to deliver charge during the sunlit hours and when not in shade so let s assume that we chase the sun all day by moving the solar panel around and get 8 hours of sunlight. Usually most larger caravans will have the panels mounted to the roof.