Post #1543779
2026-04-20 10:12 UTC
@ross 40W isn't enough to be useful to be honest. Their wattage rating is what they can pull during absolute perfect conditions (facing exactly towards the sun on a clear sky day and while the panel is still cool enough to be optimal, which it doesn't stay for long given the sun is on it...).
In reality, you'll generally get more like 10-30% of the rated wattage, for maybe a few hours per average day. They really don't like clouds and we live in an annoyingly cloudy country.
Replies (2)
-
@ric@mastodon.qweb.co.uk 2026-04-20 10:16
@ross so for an actually useful solar, you need a higher wattage panel than you'd think, hooked up to a leisure battery that has a decent capacity so that the actually sunny days we get fill the battery quickly, and then the battery capacity sustains the devices for the weeks between good strong charge up days.
-
@ross@crikey.social 2026-04-20 12:15
@ric 10-30%? That low?? Wow.