RV FEATURE
Get up on your van and give your solar panels a good clean to keep them working at peak efficiency.
KEEPING IT CLEAN
It stands to reason that keeping your solar panels clean will improve their efficiency, but how many people make the effort to clean them? Rooftop panels are particularly susceptible to the accumulation of dust but, surprisingly, this doesn’ t affect solar harvesting as much as you might think.
Depending on the quality and type of panels you have fitted to your caravan, something as simple as a couple of large leaves resting on the surface of a panel can be enough to reduce its efficiency by a noticeable margin. As we discussed earlier, rooftop panels are already struggling this time of year without having to contend with a bit of dirt and debris.
KEEP YOUR VOLTAGES CONSISTENT
Here’ s a fact about solar panels you may not know. While it is technically possible, it is generally not recommended to connect solar panels with differing voltages. It can have a detrimental effect on their combined performance and efficiency. This is important given that many caravans have the ability to connect external solar panels. Most of these would be wired in parallel with the rooftop panels. So, if you connect an external panel with a different voltage to the ones on the roof, you may not get the best performance out of the combination.
54 \