Anyone else running a static on a Victron system through a full Scottish winter?

Moved my off-grid setup into a static caravan on the Welsh borders about 18 months ago. Running a Victron Multiplus-II 3000, 600W of Renogy panels on the roof, and a 200Ah Fogstar Drift LiFePO4 bank. Works an absolute treat from April through September — barely touches the generator.

October onwards is a different story. Short days, panels caked in whatever the sky decides to throw at them, and the heating draw creeping up. I'm pulling maybe 1.5–2kWh a day just keeping the place liveable, and some days the panels are doing almost nothing useful by 3pm. Generator (a Hyundai 2kW petrol unit) ends up running every other day, sometimes daily.

Wondering whether anyone's gone through similar and actually solved it rather than just accepted the pain. I'm looking at adding a small wind turbine — something in the 400–600W range — but the mounting situation on a static is awkward. Has anyone paired wind with solar on a site like this, and did it genuinely make a dent in winter generation?

@BordersNomad not quite Scotland but I've been through two proper winters in my static with a similar Victron setup. The short days are brutal — I'm regularly seeing less than 30% of rated panel output through December/January.

Few things that made a real difference for me:

• Bump your battery bank if you can — 200Ah gets uncomfortable when you're pulling heating overnight
• Set your Multiplus dynamic cutoff correctly for cold temps, LiFePO4 behaves differently below 5°C
• Grid assist threshold tuning in VictronConnect saved me several times during storm weeks

The EV charging side I basically abandon November through February unless I've had a rare sunny run of days. Just not worth the draw.

What's your heating setup? That's usually the killer variable in a static winter — thin walls don't help.

@BordersNomad not Scotland but I did two winters in a static on Dartmoor with a comparable setup, so similar grim conditions! The thing that caught me out most was panel output dropping dramatically not just from cloud cover but from low sun angles - even clear days in December were yielding barely 20% of rated capacity. I ended up adding a small 1kW Honda genny on a timer as backup rather than relying purely on the Victron's transfer switch. Also worth checking your Fogstar's low-temperature cutoff settings in VictronConnect - LiFePO4 really doesn't like charging below 5°C and you don't want the BMS tripping unexpectedly overnight. Have you got any supplementary heating keeping the battery compartment frost-free? That made a huge difference for me.

My narrowboat setup laughs at your panels getting 11 minutes of usable sun in January — though to be fair, 200Ah of Fogstar is doing the heavy lifting when the sky goes full grey flannel for a fortnight straight.

Not Scotland but I've done two winters on the Pennines with a Multiplus-II and Fogstar bank, which I reckon gives comparable misery levels! One thing nobody's mentioned yet — keep a close eye on your charge parameters once temperatures drop properly. LiFePO4 is brilliant but Fogstar's BMS will throttle charging below 5°C, and on a static that's not being heated overnight you can wake up to the battery refusing to accept charge from the panels even on a half-decent morning. Worth setting a small heating pad under the battery compartment on a timer. Also your 600W array will surprise you on bright winter days — I've pulled 400W-plus in January when there's snow on the ground reflecting onto the panels. @WheresMeWires87 fair point about narrowboats but at least @BordersNomad isn't repositioning his roof every weekend!

@BordersNomad curious what your battery SOC looks like first thing in the morning through December/January? On my boat I find the overnight drain tells me more about whether the system is coping than anything else.

Also — are you running any secondary heating that pulls from the bank overnight, or just 12V lighting and low loads? That would change things massively in terms of whether 200Ah is actually sufficient through the short days.

@WheresMeWires87 boats have the same grief though don't they — panels shaded by the bank half the day, or moored under trees. At least a static roof is a fixed, optimised angle.

Have you looked at adding a small MPPT-connected array on a ground mount to supplement the roof panels when the sun angle is low? Made a noticeable difference to my winter harvest.