well it really means..the boat is self sufficient with no shore power. This morning I disconnected shore power, so we are solely running on solar now. And ate 6 am the sun peeked around and started providing free energy. Now does this make the sun a socialist, or just a nice entity? I wil post usage screen shots on this page over the coming weeks. Jan-Kees was on shore power, just as extra precaution, since there was a period last year where there was not enough energy to keep up with standby demand. the inverter uses 25 watts for standby, plus the batteries always consume some trickle charge. The batteries always discharge a bit, and need to be charged to full at least once a month.
Since we arrived we have been floating all by ourselves. Not connected to the atom eating nuclear energy creators, or the coal from Limburg eating fossil fuel plants. Mr or is it Mrs Sun ( because she is so fierce?) has been filling the batteries of Jan-kees with her cheerful bright energy. At 7 am the batteries were ‘down’ to 97%. We consumed 2.2 Kwh yesterday and the sun refilled it .
Wen I looked at the Venus this morning at 7:20 the sun peeking from just above the horizon and was providing more than we are using. showing a small charge current of 3.7 A. This reminds me that I need more coffee and I need to clean the panels today. Btw today will be a ‘scorcher’ 28C . (which is 83F for the non-metic people) . After this 2 days 25 and then back to the 21 -19C . (71-68F)
For energy use we use about 5 hours/day for generation from about 10:00 – 15:00
And they keep ticking and running, ran the wetvac a few times, did some power sanding.
Nearly 18:00 and the solar still keeps the batteries up and fills al our other energy needs, like Coffee, vacuuming the top deck after part of it was sanded
So today it started with an overcast sky. We are still on mainly battery at 07:45. As you see the sun is providing some free energy, but the darn clouds act as a border wall patrol. Yesterday, about the same time we had about 150 Watts of solar already. BUT it is still early.
now more drizzle @lunch time
But charging a little
Friday 8th, an overcast morning
The Sun is peeking around the corner