How To Wire A Solar Panel To A Battery

To charge a battery with a solar panel connect a charge connector to the solar panel.

How to wire a solar panel to a battery.

Then run wires from the battery to the charge connector making sure to match the positive and negative poles. In this situation a battery is relatively simple to install and the installation process won t require much additional equipment. They are usually wired in parallel to preserve the voltage of each panel but you can also wire sets of them together in series to increase the voltage to conform to the voltage of the battery bank if need be. Voltage drop in a single panel system as you can see in the calculation the voltage drop is 4 09 which will reduce the overall power delivered to the charge controller.

If your solar panel system was not originally designed with the. But solar panels are rated in watts so some simple conversion math is needed. For example your solar panel delivers 18 volts dc and 5 8 amps to the charge controller and the wire length is 40 feet. Divide the wattage of the solar panel by the voltage of the battery to get the number of amps your charge connector needs to handle.

For example a solar panel must be capable of producing 0 5 amp hours of energy per day to maintain the charge on a 50 amp battery. Keep in mind that ac load is not connected in this pv panel wiring tutorial which needs extra equipment such as ups and inverter to convert the solar panel and. This means the solar panel each day will have to supply 1 percent of the battery s total amperage to maintain full charge. Connect the panels of a solar bank together if there are more than one.