Anyone else finding narrowboat solar frustrating in winter?

Running a 400W panel setup on the roof (two 200W Renogy monos in series) feeding into a Victron MPPT 100/30. Battery bank is 200Ah of Fogstar Drift LiFePO4. Summer it's brilliant — keeps everything topped up no bother.

But November through February it's a different story. Barely seeing 10-15Ah on a cloudy day, and the panels are shaded half the morning by the cabin sides and trees along the cut. Generator's picking up the slack but I hate running it for 2-3 hours just to top up.

Thinking about adding a small wind turbine but moorings are a nightmare for that — lots of overhanging branches and some marinas have rules. Anyone gone down the turbine route on a boat, or just accepted winter means generator season? Curious what others are doing.

DuctTapeDave60 | 847 posts | ⚓ Afloat somewhere near Braunston

@BirchTrevor Totally feel your pain mate. Winter narrowboat solar is a proper humbling experience — you spend summer thinking you've cracked off-grid living then November arrives and reminds you who's actually in charge 😄

One thing worth checking in your Victron app is your actual peak sun hours. I was shocked last December — some days I was getting maybe 45 minutes of usable generation even with clear skies, just because of the sun angle.

Have you considered tilting the panels? Flat roof mounting kills efficiency badly in winter. Even a 30° tilt made a noticeable difference on mine when I was moored up for a few days.

The Fogstar Drift's a solid bank though — at least you're not losing capacity to cold temperatures like you would with AGMs. What's your typical daily consumption looking like?

MoorDweller | 312 posts | 🌿 Peak District Moorings

@BirchTrevor The shading issue on narrowboats is brutal in winter — trees along the towpath that were fine in summer suddenly become proper thieves once the sun drops low. Worth checking your Victron Connect app for the yield history to see exactly when you're losing generation.

One thing that helped me was tilting my panels slightly — even a cheap adjustable mount made a noticeable difference at our latitude between November and February. Also, have you considered a small wind turbine to complement things? Boats get decent exposure and winter tends to be windier anyway.

The Fogstar Drift is a solid choice at least — at least your storage isn't fighting against you. What's your typical daily consumption looking like? Might help diagnose whether it's purely a generation problem or partly a usage one.

OffGridKing | 1,243 posts | 🔋 Off-grid since 2019

@BirchTrevor The angle is your biggest enemy on a narrowboat — those flat roof panels are losing you a massive chunk of potential harvest when the sun's barely scraping above the horizon. Worth checking your Victron app's yield history; you'll probably wince at the December numbers.

One thing that genuinely helped me was adding a small wind turbine as a complementary source — cloudy winter days often bring decent wind, especially if you're on open canal stretches. Even a modest 200W turbine smooths out the gaps considerably.

Also, have you looked at your consumption rather than just generation? Winter on a boat sees heating and lighting creep up sneakily. Running a load audit through the Victron console can reveal some surprises.

YorkshireVanLifer | 203 posts | 🚐 Yorkshire Dales (mostly)

@BirchTrevor Worth checking your actual harvest figures through the Victron app if you haven't already — sometimes the numbers are less dire than it feels. I run a similar Fogstar/Victron setup and December yield was genuinely pitiful, but the batteries held reasonable state of charge because I'd cut my consumption back hard.

Two things that made a real difference for me:

• Tilt frames — even a modest angle helps enormously when the sun's barely clearing the treeline
• Running the engine more intentionally rather than hoping solar will cover it

Also, what's your actual daily consumption? That's often where the problem really lives rather than generation itself.

DefenderLife | 847 posts | ☀️ Garden Office + Shepherd's Hut

@BirchTrektor The series wiring is worth revisiting for winter specifically. Two panels in series means one partial shadow kills output from both — on a narrowboat roof where trees, bridges and lock structures constantly clip one panel, you're potentially losing the lot. Parallel wiring (or adding a second MPPT) lets each panel work independently.

My garden office setup taught me this the hard way — switched to parallel and saw meaningful gains on patchy days. Your Victron 100/30 has headroom to handle the lower combined voltage from parallel 200W panels no problem.

Winter in the UK is really a management game more than a hardware one — knowing your actual daily consumption vs realistic harvest (maybe 100-150Wh on a grim December day) helps you plan generator top-ups without frustration.

T5Solar | 512 posts | 🚐 Solar obsessive, Yorkshire

@BirchTrevor The shading issue on narrowboats is brutal in winter — trees along towpaths that were no bother in summer suddenly become a real problem when the sun's tracking so low. Worth keeping an eye on where you're mooring if you can help it, especially those south-facing cuts with overhanging branches.

Also, 200Ah LiFePO4 is actually quite modest if you're living aboard full time. What's your actual daily consumption looking like? Sometimes winter frustration is less about generation and more about expectation — you might genuinely need either shore power top-ups or a small genny/alternator solution to bridge the gap November through February. No solar setup realistically replaces those in the UK winter, even a decent one.