Renogy solar panel update

During the course of a ten-day trip helping Graham Jackson and Maggie McDermut lead a trip through Utah and Colorado, we had a chance to evaluate the performance of our two new 100-watt Renogy solar panels.

As expected, the panels provided an excess of power to keep our auxiliary battery at float voltage under the draw of a National Luna fridge/freezer and numerous charging devices and inverters. I was astonished the morning of the camp above to note the panels inputting about a watt of power before the sun was on them, just from ambient light.

I debated before going with semi-flexible panels. It’s generally accepted that rigid panels are more durable. However, I really like the zero wind (and thief) profile of the adhesive-secured Renogy units. Our last such panels, on the roof of our Four Wheel Camper, were still producing full power when we sold the camper eight years later, so I’m hoping for similar performance.

Mounting rigid panels also would have required drilling through the Mulgo pop-top roof to install rivnuts, and I avoid drilling extra holes in the roof whenever possible.

I’m planning to fabricate or have fabricated some sort of fairing to cover the several MC-4 connectors I needed at the back of the panels (to siamese the four power cables into two), to protect against low-hanging branches I might fail to avoid.

Renogy is here.