Solar panel Considerations

We’re planning on keeping costs down by using aires, stellplatz, wild camping, France Passion and so on. Basically we want to be fairly self sufficient, so we can stay away from camp sites for days, or even weeks at a time. From our experience on our short (two week) trips to date, we know a leisure battery won’t last long when we’re wanting to run a TV, satellite, heating, laptops, lights and so on and so on.

So, we’re looking into fitting one or two solar panels to the van – 80W to 160W in total, and matching this up with one or two 100Ah or more batteries. There are a bunch of things for us to consider before we commit to buy and install the panels:

• If the van we buy already has a panel or two, how old it is (panels lose some efficiency over time I think, but not much), is it bonded directly to the roof of the van (hot panels are less efficient than ones which are cooled by air flowing under them)?
• Should we bother mounting the panels on a liftable platform, so we can angle them towards the sun?
• What size panels do we need? Basically this needs to read as: how much load do we think we’ll place on the panels? 80W is the peak output of a panel – not the average output.
• What size batteries do we need (tied in with above point)?
• Is it worth investing in an expensive voltage regulator (the voltage from solar panels varies during the day, and batteries like to be charged in a certain way). From what I’ve read so far, it’s not worth spending the cash on an expensive regulator.
• What kind of battery status monitor do we need – something basic like a few LEDs, or a flashed LCD display, or something in between?
• What size and type of inverter should I use to get the DC battery power converted to the AC I need for our various gadgets?
• How do I install all this stuff so the van’s waterproof, the cables are not cooked and the batteries are wired up correctly?

Decisions, decisions.

Update
We’ve now bought our motorhome and a solar panel for it – you can read about our choice, the day it was fitted, and our review of the panel.