Julian always requires a project and when we are not renovating a house, or helping our children with building projects, he does not sit and twiddle his thumbs but he thinks of another idea to make our life on the boat even better, or to increase efficiency in some way. Currently he is putting his mind to solar panels.
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| Oh dear, our panel supports are ready for sun not rain! |
Our power on the boat comes from shore power electricity that we pay through the boatyard (no standing charge so it works out pretty reasonable), and oil that powers most of our radiators. A few of the radiators are also electric. We have an electric car. So as we are in a sunny spot, we want to make the most of this free power and are working out ways to install solar panels in a that won't detract from the clean lines of our beautiful boat.
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| Julian starts by fixing the solar panel supports onto the roof of the captain's accommodation with magets! |
We don't want to make holes in our boat so Julian has done the maths and calculated that solar panel supports can be fixed by powerful magnets. By doing a lot of the work ourselves, we hope to save money and the solar people can focus on installing the panels, wiring and the batteries.
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| Installation complete. |
The solar company we used is the same one that our son used for his solar panels. They are called Batteries and Solar Ltd from Plymouth and we have found them to be reasonably priced and very knowledgeable.
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| Very unobtrusive. |
Our solar panels make electric almost free in the summer and we can even charge the car on them in the best of weather.
The amount of electricity that is being generated can be seen on a phone app and it's quite interesting and satisfying to see the free electricity being absorbed by the panels. There was a little bit of tweeking to get the maximum efficiency to begin with, but they are working very well.
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