03-06-2017, 05:35 AM
I gave solar some thought a while back. I very much like the concept from a preparedness perspective of not having dependantcies on utilities or fuel for a generator. Basically, if your boat is large enough for enough solar panels, then a trolling motor isn't big enough for your boat. An interesting design exception that I considered is a large permanent canopy for a lot of shade that doubles as a rack for big solar panels. I might do that someday and the price of solar is going down while efficiency is going up. But, so far, I haven't seen anyone do it. The small solar panels that are common are generally just for maintaining of a full charge on already charged batteries which doesn't take much to be more than batteries slow loss of charge and compensating for occasional small loads like an automatic bilge pump coming on very infrequently.
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