Solar in winter months?

I wonder if anyone has tried some kind of dangle panel? Maybe a flexible panel with suction cups on. These could be temporary mounted to the side of your van. The pain would be storing them without damaging them.
 
I guess I need to work out some actual figures of realistic normal demand vs potential winter solar supply of maybe just 10%?
 
The efficiency of solar panels varies between 18% and 22% That's a 10% difference, so high efficiency ones might be 10% smaller or 10% bigger than the nominal 20% ones.
However, there's a bigger difference in the honesty of suppliers. Some 30 watt panels are sold as 100 watt ones.
 
Any increase in Solar should also equal an increase in battery.

A question, would running the engine on tick over wake the alternator enough to charge much, and what would be a best case scenario?
 
We tend to move every day as wild campers and try to do at least 50 miles.
 
You could have any combination of battery size and solar panel size you want really. It is a matter of balance to what works most efficiently for the money spent.
A general rule of thumb is 1Ah of battery to 1W of PV, but it is not a hard and fast or absolute requirement by any means.
200W of solar in summer will likely recharge a 100Ah battery to full faster then you might actually need to e.g. you won't actually see much benefit from the investment. Come autumn time, that 200W could be a nice match for 100Ah of battery.

What you DO have to consider is if your existing solar controller can cope with the additional solar panel. That is more likely to be a limitation.
 
In winter extra batteries are helpful in storing whatever the controller (MPPT is always better) can drag from the panel/s batteries are less efficient in cold weather so bigger/more is better, you have to take into account usage, anything with a motor is going to be a bigger drain than say a LED light, if you run a 240v TV via an inverter, that too will drag a lot out of the storage, 12v is better. In summer of course having more storage makes better use of any panels you have.
 
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