HB Solar: Grid tie or off grid?

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chrisut

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I think that one of my off season projects is to add some solar to my boat. I have a 98 Stardust monohull with a dual power system, with most switched being dual, one for battery power and one for generator power. Its a bit confusing to me, but whatever. I would like to add 1KW-2KW of solar power to the front of the boat, and maybe over the top deck canvas. In a perfect world, I'd be able to run my AC all day on solar, but I generally live in a world that is not perfect.
I like to DIY most things, and figure out the best way. The boat presently has an inverter/charger (probably from early 2000's) and battery bank with 8 or 10 golf cart batteries.
I have been looking at and researching solar systems and there is a mass of confusing information. I'm wondering what other wordlings have done. Are you guys using a grid tie or off grid system, or am I going about this all wrong (which is entirely possible, if not likely)?
 
A lot of the houseboats have solar systems on them and they do great at helping "maintain" the battery banks. But as far as running the A/C all day off solar.....Sadly you would need a much bigger solar panel field, inverter, safety switch and battery bank and not to mention more daylight if there is any other power usage.

If you have any questions, PM me and I will help how I can. I'm sure others will chime in here.
 
If you wanted to be able to run your entire boat off solar, you would need to figure out your wattage needs of the entire boat and size the system appropriately. The standard household central A/C will consume about 3000-5000 watts per hour. Do you have a full size refrigerator on board? A television? Electric water heater? All that would need to be calculated if you wanted to make the boat /AC run off solar all day long.

But, if you created a solar system just for your A/C unit, then that would mean the top deck would be completely covered in solar panels. Say your A/C only draws 2500 watts of power. You would need an inverter with a rating for a sustained load of 2500-3000 watts minimum and since the standard RV solar panels are usually around 150 watts, you would need 17 panels just to handle the 2500 watt draw. But a independent system also has its draw backs also. If your inverter goes down, you can't flip the switch and run the generator for the AC.

If you wanted to calculate the electrical load on your boat, remember that 1 electric horsepower = 746 watts and a safe bet is that every heating element is 1500 watts (water heater as an example).
 
great info, thanks for sharing! I've been doing lots of research on how to make this all work as well. I'm going to keep the generator as I can't imagine being without power when I need it, like in the middle of the night in a storm.

I'm trying to keep cost down and have found some used panels, 245 watt panels that I think are going to be a good fit for 8 panels. I'll need one or two charge controllers (MPPT) and I already have a trace 3000W inverter charger and a battery bank.

If anyone has the measurements of the front of a late 90's early 00's summerset flybridge cowling that would be great ;) I plan to put them out over the cowling on the bow, as my battery bank is under the front deck.
 
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