Hello all, my first post here and I’m fairly new to solar. I’ve had a small setup in my camper for a couple years that I have upgraded but did not install. I also have four, 100 watt panels and a couple small Bluettis, and that sums up my solar experience. I have of course watched tons of videos, read Will Prowse’s book, and tried to learn as much as I can (in my near nonexistent spare time).
I recently purchased the AC300 and a B300k. I was wondering if anyone could confirm that I have chosen (not purchased yet) panels that are a good fit. I would be interested in other suggestions but I am getting these for around $120 each (after tax and shipping) and not looking to go much over that (tho I do have to buy 10). I’m looking at “Hyperion 400W Bifacial Solar Panel (Black) | Up to 500W with Bifacial Gain”, stats are as follows:
Wattage: 400W | Up to 500W with Bifacial Gain
VOC: 37.07V
ISC: 13.79A
Cell Type: Bifacial | Mono PERC
I’m thinking 2 arrays of 3 panels in series would give me 111.21v, 13.79a, and up to1500 watts on each input. Over paneling is my goal to help out on those cloudy days. Is it considered bad practice to run 4 in series for the warm season and reconfigure to 3 for the winter? Is 4 too much (for warm weather)? That would be 148.28v, but up to 2000 watts per input. Of course I’ll never see that much but it could get well over the rated 1200 watts. I could negate the potential 100 watts of bifacial gain (per panel), but my understanding is the extra just goes unused and I might want that at sun rise and set. I read in another post someone partially covered one panel to bring his voltage down to within specs. If this works, would it make sense to run 4 panels in series, and on a hot sunny day, see how much I needed to cover to bring it down to 130v and go with that for the winter instead of removing a full panel? Then again, I have also read that partially covering a panel puts a strain on the rest of the panel and could potentially cause a fire or burn out the panel, is this true? Thanks in advance, I hope these are not dumb questions and that I have supplied enough info.
