Solar panels have long been the best passive solution for keeping your boat’s batteries topped up and many of us have gone through the process of doing an energy audit, sizing our battery banks and then trying to figure out how best to adapt solar panels to the system.
On sailboats, with masts, booms, dodgers, biminis and some deck area, where to place solar panels is one of the hardest decisions since, even with today’s panels, shade decreases output in direct proportion to the shaded area on the panels.
The development of highly-efficient, flexible panels has greatly improved the panel-placement issue since we can now use both the bimini and the dodger’s relatively large surface areas.
Here’s a thorough guide from BoatUS on how to choose the right panels, how to mount them and how to wire up the charge controller and circuits to your main battery bank.
