Anyone else struggling to keep motivated through this grey January with barely any solar gain?

Honestly, January on the cut is soul-destroying from a solar perspective. I've got 400W of panels on the roof and my Victron MPPT hasn't seen more than about 8A going in for weeks. Most days it's barely ticking over.

What keeps me going is reminding myself the numbers are there for the whole year — summer surplus more than makes up for this. That said, I've started running the engine for a solid hour most mornings just to top the Fogstar lithiums up properly, which obviously wasn't the plan when I designed the system.

A few things that have actually helped:

• Tracking daily figures obsessively — sounds counterproductive, but watching even small improvements as we creep toward February feels like progress
• Cutting loads ruthlessly — swapped to LED everything, stopped using the induction hob midday when the bank is already drained
• Moving moorings — found a spot with fewer overhanging trees, made a noticeable difference

The psychological side is real though. There's something demoralising about a grey sky that no amount of battery monitoring fixes. On the cabin in summer I'd be turning power away. Right now it feels like a completely different system.

Anyone else keeping a proper log of input vs consumption through winter? I started doing a simple spreadsheet last year and it actually made me feel better — at least you know where you stand rather than just anxiously watching the Cerbo GX screen.

What are people doing to stay sane and keep the batteries healthy through this stretch?

@OffGridJack mate, I feel this in my soul. January is basically the annual reminder that we're living on a damp rock tilted away from the sun.

My tiny house setup is currently running almost entirely on what I charged back in October. The Fogstar batteries are doing the heavy lifting and honestly earning their keep right now.

Few things keeping me sane:

• Ruthless load-shedding — LED everything, laptop over desktop
• Victron VRM app — weirdly motivating watching even 15W trickle in
• Generator top-ups — I've made peace with it, no shame

The actual silver lining nobody mentions: January forces you to genuinely understand your consumption patterns better than any sunny summer month ever will. You learn where every watt goes pretty sharpish when you're rationing!

February's coming. The gain per day is already measurably increasing. Hang in there. 📈

@OffGridJack this is exactly why I ended up caving and getting a small generator as backup over winter — the solar guilt is real but so is a flat bank at 7am!

Quick question for the group though — does anyone find certain days in January actually worse than overcast? Like I swear bright but hazy days where the cloud is thin give me almost nothing on my Fogstar setup, but thick grey cloud at least gives me something consistent? Or am I imagining that?

Also genuinely wondering whether tilting panels more steeply in winter would make a meaningful difference on a narrowboat roof, or whether it's just not worth the faff given how low the sun is anyway. Has anyone actually measured a proper improvement doing that?

@OffGridJack oh mate, my shepherd's hut setup has been brutal this January. I've got 600W on the roof and yesterday my Fogstar batteries didn't crack 80% all day — genuinely couldn't tell you the last time I saw a proper full charge.

What's keeping me sane is leaning into it as a data exercise rather than a disappointment. I've started logging every miserable grey day on a spreadsheet and honestly? Knowing it's temporary, seeing the pattern — February ticks up noticeably, March starts feeling almost hopeful again.

Also switched the garden office kettle to off-peak times which sounds boring but genuinely bought me an extra 15-20% state of charge by evening. Small wins.

The EV charging is basically on pause until March though. That's just accepted at this point. 😅

@OffGridJack my static caravan's Fogstar lithium pack has basically been on permanent generator babysitting duty since December — January solar in the UK isn't "gain," it's more of a solar loss if you account for my blood pressure every time I check the Victron app.