So for 4 years I have been wanting to be able to leave the
refrigerator on during the week with it out on the
mooring and no one around. I also wanted to get my
batteries fully charged at the same time. So
solar became the answer to me.
I chose
solar over
wind even though there are a lot more
wind generator on boats out in the
mooring field than there are
solar panels. I also figured that it would be less expensive than
wind once I did all the mounting etc. and that a 290W panel was 1/4 the cost on a
wind generator.
So what is the cost of cold
beer? I have the system up and running and the cost has come to $1469 which includes the panel, controller mounting, wire and connections (and 12 hours of my time).
The panel itself at $269 was the cheapest part of the whole system!