Energy System

Our boat originally came with a very minimal 12v system that was well documented and handled the sailing basics. Rather than expanding this system for our house loads, we decided to keep the system exactly as it, but transfer all power to our new house system with a Victron Orion-TR DC to DC Charger. This new as of 2024 DC to DC charger is incredibly small and power efficient, and allowed us to keep solar panels, shore power system, and starter batteries exactly the same. In addition to that we added a Victron Lynx Distributor, a Victron Smart Shunt, and a Victron Phoenix Inverter for long running AC loads. We also added a cheap 2000 Watt Inverter for temporary kitchen loads. This has turned out to be very clean solution, and is highly recommended over something like the Victron Multiplus 2 if you already have a working system.

The more involved electrical purchases and considerations are listed below.

System-Voltage

Originally we wanted to use a 24v system to save money on wiring, but still be compatible with many devices. 48v is where the industry is trending, but there is still too little support for us to recommend 48v. If you need electric propulsion it makes sense, but otherwise you will often not be able to find electronics in 48v. Between 12v and 24v we choose 12v because we were forced by the “Victron Orion-TR DC to DC Charger” not being out in 24v version. However, we’ve grown to appreciate the redundancy. In a critical situation, we can wire the original 12v system to our house batteries or jump start the engine.

Batteries

For batteries, we use the 1st gen of the Epoch 460AH which was well reviewed at the time. The second generation got poor reviews, but the first generation has performed well, beside the need for a shunt due to not registering low power loads. If having your battery be rock solid is important (electric propulsion, insurance requirements), it’s better to use Victron Batteries or similar and pay the extra cost. For most loads however, this isn’t necessary. Just be sure to watch reviews from Will Prowse, Panbo or read forums where people test batteries. The battery technology is getting much cheaper and better quality every year.

As for capacity, we can currently go 8 or 9 days on our regular loads before running out of power. This is too much, and we would be better served with 4 or 5 days of storage and less weight and cost. However, we decided to choose this capacity so that we could keep the battery charge between 30% - 70% to make the battery last longer. While it was nice to have the extra headroom when figuring out our usage, we would now just buy smaller batteries, use their whole capacity, and upgrade more frequently. Storage of energy is much less important than being able to replenish energy easily via solar or the engine. If you use electric propulsion, this of course changes the equation and upgrading to new batteries is a much larger cost.

For the starter battery we do not use lithium. From an amperage discharge capacity, it’s often fine with modern batteries and works great in a pinch. However, you’re trusting a BMS which is a computer, instead mechanical lead acid batteries or AGM. Also if a lithium battery goes out while cruising, you can not just pick up another from an auto shop. You have to have it mailed which can be problematic in rural cruising grounds.

Solar Panels

For solar panels, the boat came with semi flexible Solbian solar panels. These are expensive, high quality solar panels with the MPPT charger integrated. They also had already been replaced once in 5 years, and completely delaminated again in less than a year of our ownership. For this reason, we only go with rigid solar panels now. We are currently using one 120 watt Renogy Shadowflux panel, after seeing it reviewed favorably for our purposes here. In our foggy marine layer location with the panel often shaded by the sail bundle, we pull about 600 wh on a good day, and 450 wh on a foggy day in the summer. Outside of this we have 80 watts of the Solbian panels still installed that are working.

For installing the panel, use Z Brackets and the steps found in the “Epoxy Fiberglass” article for securing each hole. If the area they are mounted is curved, they sell curved Z Brackets, but we didn’t end up needing them as we appreciated having a higher space to get under the solar panel. It’s also easiest to install the Z Brackets to the panel first, and then mount to the surface they will be installed on. There is very little clearance space form the Z Brackets however, so you will need to buy a small “ratcheting wrench” as there is no room for a socket or a regular wrench.

For MPPT controllers, we went with each panel getting it’s own controller (just the Shadowflux for now as the others are integrated), and use the Victron Smart Solar.