Using solar energy when hooked up?

Nowti Berti
Nowti Berti Forum Participant Posts: 15
edited May 2022 in Motorhomes #1

Hi there,

We’re hoping for a little bit of advice. We’ve been full-timing for 2 years, living and working from our Knaus motorhome, mainly off grid when work projects allow.

We have a 175w solar panel fitted with our twin leisure batteries and an inverter for emergency laptop charge etc and my (possibly naïve) question is about what we should be doing when on campsites with EHU.
Do people switch off the electric battery charger and allow Solar energy to top up the leisure batteries when on EHU?

It seems more CLs and private campsites are now charging per unit (especially in Europe) and there’s also the green benefit, so it would be great to maximise our solar energy where possible.

We’d love to know what others do.

Many thanks for reading this!  

Comments

  • DavidKlyne
    DavidKlyne Club Member Posts: 13,857 ✭✭✭
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    edited May 2022 #2

    I am no expert on such things but we have a solar panel that came as standard with the motorhome and we plug into the mains as usual. I would have thought it would be the solar panel controller which would monitor the amount of charge being supplied to the batteries so there was no conflict between the built in battery charger on 230v and the charge coming from the panel? I would have thought both would have an overcharge cut out facility on both controller and charger which should be automatic? If not I have been doing it wrong for the past four years?

    David

  • Kasspa
    Kasspa Forum Participant Posts: 359
    edited May 2022 #3

    I have a 140w solar panel & don't switch off anything.

    I'm sure the 'set up' automatically switches when not on EHU, this is what the solar panel is there for......

  • FreshAir4Us
    FreshAir4Us Forum Participant Posts: 17
    edited May 2022 #4

    I don’t know how the solar works either but had assumed the same as above that it must be automatic. Assuming that to be the case then if you are trying to limit the electric consumption I wonder whether you could disconnect from the mains periodically and only connect for the times that you actually need to use the electric maybe? Someone with more technical knowledge than me may have a view on that idea.

  • cyberyacht
    cyberyacht Forum Participant Posts: 10,218
    1000 Comments
    edited June 2022 #5

    I have 3x 100W panels and have my on-board charger turned off practically permanently.

  • Unknown
    Unknown Forum Participant
    edited June 2022 #6
    The user and all related content has been Deleted User
  • peedee
    peedee Club Member Posts: 9,383 ✭
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    edited June 2022 #7

    Much the same but it is not easy to turn off my on board charger. It involves removing a pannel to get at it so it remains on all the time.

    peedee

     
  • Unknown
    Unknown Forum Participant
    edited June 2022 #8
    The user and all related content has been Deleted User

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