Thinking About A Solar Panel? Look At This.....

Big Mac, thank you for the pics and the links.. It certainly looks like the semi rigid ones are the way to go. That way i wont have to worry about the weight or the vibrations, that may occur with heavier rigid ones.
Can anyone tell me how they compare output wise to the rigid ones..
I want to charge electric bikes, so im thinking of a minimum of 300w panel, charging 2 x Renogy 105a lithium batteries. Any thoughts on this..
 
Big Mac, thank you for the pics and the links.. It certainly looks like the semi rigid ones are the way to go. That way i wont have to worry about the weight or the vibrations, that may occur with heavier rigid ones.
Can anyone tell me how they compare output wise to the rigid ones..
I want to charge electric bikes, so im thinking of a minimum of 300w panel, charging 2 x Renogy 105a lithium batteries. Any thoughts on this..

You need to find the capacity of the bike batteries to make any kind of informed decision. Also, do the bikes have a 12v charger, otherwise you’ll need an inverter to get to 240v.
 
Hi, at present the one im using is 16ah 36w. i can get the 12v charger, as i dont really want an inverter. I am considering changing the bike and at that point there will be 2 the same, but obviously i wont know the capacity until i get it..
Hope that helps to start with tho..
 
Hi, at present the one im using is 16ah 36w. i can get the 12v charger, as i dont really want an inverter. I am considering changing the bike and at that point there will be 2 the same, but obviously i wont know the capacity until i get it..
Hope that helps to start with tho..

The battery is 16Ah at what voltage? Or, to put it another way, what Wh is it?
 
Hi.
I have taken a picture of the existing charge. Hope it makes sense to you. Thank you for your help..

IMG_20210430_104840.jpg
 
Given you're likely replacing the bikes anyway, I had a google and found that a rough standard'ish capacity for a new electric bike is of the order 500Wh. At 12v, that equates to about 42Ah, which when doubled for two such bikes gives you 84Ah. Now, we can go through it in more detail but it's clear that this is going to require a very significant battery investment to be feasible (having said that, it is probably at least possible from a pure battery perspective - search the forum for a 200Ah 'Roamer' lithium battery that showed up recently). However, from a solar perspective, if we assume that, at a worst case, you'll be charging these bikes daily, you're approaching the limit of what solar can reasonably provide over the course of a (sunny!) day. If we assume a 300w panel (close to the largest size that can be reasonably accommodated), then on a day of near perfect sunshine for, say, 6 hours you can expect a maximum of 150Ah in but this will drop off extremely quickly as conditions become less than perfect and various inefficiencies in the system will detract further.

A further factor is that I don't know how widely available 12v bike chargers are. If one isn't available then you are going to need a pretty beefy inverter too.

With all this in mind, and before you spec out a >£2k monster electrical install, are you sure you need this capability off hook up? If you only need it on hook up then you're away, you simply plug your charger into the 240v socket...

Alternatively, if the bikes charge quickly, maybe you're happy running the engine to charge the bikes?
 
Wow, that is a lot of info. Thank you so much. We will be totally off grid, so no Electric hook up. I know that I can get a 12v charger. At the moment it will be just the one bike.
And mainly just for popping into The local village, with shorter rides, maybe 15 miles
. But eventually it would be 2. This would be all that would be charged on the 2 105amh lithium batteries. And it wouldn't be a full charge every day. As we would be doing other things as well.
 
It might be better, and far cheaper, to buy a generator to charge the bikes. Some of the new 'silent' ones are very quiet. And if you are off grid away from others one of these generators wont disturb.
 
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