Everything About Flexible Solar Panels You Need To know!

0:00 It has been just over two years since I installed these Reneg 200 watt flexible solar panels on my RV and I can say that this test is finally done. Now, I've got some solid data to share, the good, the bad, and everything in between. So, we're going to take a look at pros and cons and to see how well these have held

0:17 up and to see if these are something still to consider. Now, in that time, these solar panels have seen from Southern California, all the way to the coast, over to Courtsite, Arizona, up to Lake Havsu, all the way back to Northern California, Oregon multiple times, and not to mention all the way back down to

0:35 Havsu and more. And so far, these solar panels have stayed exactly where I put them. So, not really too worried about the mounting method. So, today I'm going to test each one of these panels just to see how well they're doing. So, this will be fresh for me, too. and we'll both see well how well they've held up.

0:51 Now, when I first installed them, I did follow Reneg's recommendations. I ended up using 3M double-sided sticky tape, which that's one thing they said you could use, or either a sealant. They advised not to use a sign board, which that was kind of what I wanted to do to basically give them some cooling, but

1:07 since it was against the recommendations, I opted for the tape. Now, another note is getting max solar out of your RV rooftop setup is not exactly easy. It's tough because of all the curves, the angles. Every RV roof is different. And not to mention how you park north versus south can all affect

1:24 production. Plus, not to mention seasonal angles as well with the sun is lower in the sky. And not to mention shade from trees definitely can pose a problem. So sometimes portable panels can definitely help make up for that. But rooftop solar is never really a perfect setup, but having some solar is

1:40 always better than having no solar. Now, one other thing is that I live in an area that gets extremely hot. Last year, we reached temperatures that were 113 degrees and above for over a week. This ended up giving us record temperatures of a recorded 119°. One day, while on my RV roof, I recorded an ambient

1:58 temperature of 122, and I got out my heat gun, which ended up showing a recorded 172° on the panels. Now, I forgot to record that, but I did go back out around 6:00 p.m., which I did record 158 to 159, as you can see. And again, flexible solar panels do not like extreme temperatures. Okay, and welcome

2:18 to the roof. So, just so you know, I did just wash everything and I wiped everything down. That way, when we do the testing part of this, I can hopefully get the most amount of uh power out of each one of these solar panels. The first thing we're doing is inspection. Okay. So, hopefully you can

2:33 see some discoloration here, but just to give you an idea of what's going on, and we'll explain that panel over there in a minute. But this section back here is the section that sees the most amount of sun. It also sees the most amount of damage because when this is parked in my backyard, you can see the roof line

2:51 right here. Right. Well, you can see that this section over here gets shaded a lot more. And when it comes to being over on this side where my neighbor's yard is, this section just gets a lot more sun throughout the day consistently. And another thing too is that this area here is also the area

3:06 where I tend to put where the sun is the most so I can get the best angles when I am out traveling, whether if I'm at courtsite or if I'm at other areas, I try to put this towards the back facing south. And another thing too is that this is also where when I do go to RV parks and I back in, this is where this

3:24 section here tends to be under the trees the most. So it sees the most amount of damage from branches falling off. Also, not to mention as tree sap. That is another problem that I get on these, which is quite a bit harder to take off than if you had a rigid glass panel. So, as we inspect this panel back here on

3:41 the very back, there is a little bit of discoloration, but it's very even from when it used to look new, which is a little bit of what this one looks like right here. So, the reason this one looks better is because this one is only a little more than a year old. And this one I also put protectant on twice

3:59 throughout the year. I would put some 303 on here and I just left it. So, as you can see, the color looks a lot better than basically all the other ones where I didn't really cover them up at all. I did it once in the very beginning. And there was some discussion about the UV protectant actually maybe

4:14 affecting the amount of light that would absorb and actually then the amount of energy that the solar panel would produce. Now, hopefully you can see this, but as we take a look at this solar panel right here, you can see a little bit of damage. This is where a tree branch actually fell on this and it

4:30 did kind of puncture the outer layer just a little bit. So, there's just this little bit of a kind of a flaking right there. Hard to see, but you see these little spots here. Hopefully, you can see that. That spot there is from sap that was on here for quite a while and I didn't get it off. I have another spot

4:47 that is right there. Not sure if you can see it or not, but overall what I am looking for is for burn spots. And this is something I do about every month or two. I would just kind of take a visual up here. Now, hopefully you can see this one here. This is actually getting a little bit of that discoloration within

5:06 the cell along with this one here. Very hard to see sometimes just because of the amount of glare. So hopefully this is coming through all right, but you can see some along with this one as well. This panel here is the one that has suffered the most so far. You also have this solar panel here, which you can see

5:24 the same type of discoloration that is starting to happen within the cells, but I'm not seeing anything that is burnt yet as far as any kind of burning in the bus bars or connections between the cells. And I don't know if you can see this here, but this here is also just a little bit of damage. This was from

5:41 another tree branch. Because again, I go a lot of places where not a lot of other people go. But if again, if you park anywhere around trees and you know, it's windy, you get the tree branches that will fall and they can damage these just a little bit. Not to mention, of course, your roof. But you can see this panel

5:58 here also starting to see a decent amount of discoloration within some of the cells. Now, this solar panel doesn't look so bad, but this one was also a newer one as well because I had one fall off and get damaged. The same thing with the other one back there. mainly because of the install. I ended up having a

6:15 solar panel here and another one over there that was going side to side. And when I moved them, I actually damaged them because one blew off because of the wind and I already had a damaged panel. And then as we look at this solar panel, you can see kind of the same discoloration starting to happen in some

6:30 of the cells. And again, we're getting some of the same discoloration here as well. And some discoloration on this one as well. And then as we look at the last solar panel, the same thing. So basically a lot of them are having the same type of discoloration at the same time. And again just like earlier when I

6:48 was talking about the heat, it is the robber again of all things. And where I live, it gets extremely hot. Hence, these are probably going to be better. Like I mentioned before, cooler climates is where these are going to be, you know, probably your best bet or if you can keep your RV covered, you know,

7:04 inside storage at times. That way they're not consistently exposed. or if you protect them, you might get longer life out of them. I wish I kind of protected all of them just as an experiment. But again, that's why I did that one only just to kind of see what would happen if I protected it with UV

7:20 protectant versus not protecting them at all. Okay, so we're going to continue this in just a little bit. Once the sun is a little bit higher in the sky, then we're going to test each one of these solar panels and check our output. Okay, so we're going to start testing and we're going to use this battery with

7:34 that Victron solar charge controller and see how many watts we get using the app because I find this just works better. And by the way, if you guys see people using testers like these, I have found after using them repetitively for a long time that they are actually not that accurate. I thought they were and after

7:52 just using them for, you know, many different tests and then comparing it with something else, they just are not accurate. So, if you see other people using these, maybe question the results a little bit. Okay. So, I have my extensions right there. I'm going to plug into number one. We're going to

8:07 start here. 1 2 3. And this will be number four. And I'm going to start moving faster and faster as we get going. And we'll just check each individual one. Now, the conditions today are not too bad. It's 95° almost with a slight haze in the sky from some surrounding fires, but overall today is

8:24 not bad. Okay. So again, with these solar panels being curved, it is hard to get maximum output. The most I really ever see out of these is around 140 to 160 depending on the day. Again, because RVs are horrible for putting out, you know, the maximum amount of power that a solar panel can provide because again,

8:43 there's so many curves. But as we take a look right now, getting 143 watts out of this solar panel. So we'll see how the consistency is as we move along. Okay, so this panel right here, number two, looks like we are getting right about 136 watts steady out of this one. Hopefully you can see that there's a lot

9:05 of glare out here, at least from what I'm seeing. But 136, 135 give or take. Okay, we are now testing panel number three. And hopefully you can see this, but 134 135 watts. So real consistent between these two anyway. So that's kind of nice actually. That's what we want to see. Okay, we are now doing this solar

9:24 panel, which again is only just a little over a year old. And this is the one that I put a little protectant on. But hopefully you can see this. Again, this is doing about 141 142 watts. And you can see about oh 10.3 amps. We're looking at this one kind of going is what it is loaded anyway into

9:44 that battery. So overall pretty consistent with that one back there, too. So these four all within pretty consistent numbers because again this one's much flatter. These ones have curves over here. And of course our sun is I wouldn't say directly overhead. It's just a little bit to the side. So

10:01 it's pretty close. Okay. We are now doing number five. Basically this panel, that one back there, and those ones are all together in series. So this is my number five for me. And if you take a look, look at that. 137. Hopefully you can see that again with the glare and everything else, but reading 137 watts

10:21 at the moment. Okay. Well, I forgot to have my microphone on, but now that it is on, uh, we're going to do these three panels over here since the angle of the sun is actually more direct over these right now. So, this was around that 1225 mark. This one right here is doing about 135,

10:40 just the same as the ones in the back. So, pretty interesting. So far, everything is very consistent as far as their output. Okay, we are now at this solar panel and this one here is now doing 132 watts. And again, this one has a little bit more angle. You know, that's kind of away from the sun, but

10:58 still 132 watts. Not bad. But one thing I can tell you is that the heat up here is it is cooking. I think it's hotter than 95 for sure. Okay, now this front solar panel, which I honestly thought we'd be getting a little less of because one, it just doesn't look very good, but also it's

11:14 angled, you know, pretty poor, but look at that. 133 watts. Again, hopefully you can see this with all the glare for me out here. It's It's super bright. It's super hot. Um, but 133. Okay, so last of the front solar panels. And check that out. 134 watts. Hopefully, again, you can see this. And

11:35 maybe if I get that in the shade a little bit, but have to zoom in. 134 watts on this one, too. And for the last solar panel, if you take a look, look at that. 136 watts. So, I'm not really sure why we're getting 122 out of that. Let's just double check it for fun. But 136 watts. So, we are averaging really 133

11:56 watts probably for every one of these solar panels. Okay, one more test on this panel just to make sure I didn't mess anything up. But as we take a look and again hopefully you can see that but running about 120 watts now versus the 122 because obviously it's getting hotter out here. But this looks like

12:14 it'll be the worst of the panels. So this one looks like it's got some serious degradation going on. So it's possible that that one will die out here. I give it one more year and it might be down to nothing. All right, as we come back into the RV. So now we're going to be looking if we were to add

12:30 everything up that we had earlier. This is approximately what we should be seeing about450 to about 1490 give or take which so far this is actually pretty accurate to what I normally get on a hot day like this. It's 95 maybe a little hotter outside. It's not exactly cool but you can see

12:49 both sides here are bringing in almost about the same. Now, I would see peaks of 1,900 on the good days. And if I was to get like a cloudy, broken cloudy day and you have cloud effect going, I've seen peaks of 2100 before. And then normally, again, when I'm traveling or in the backyard, 15 to,700,

13:11 best days again, 1900 watts. And so, this is about accurate, maybe slightly less. It's hard to determine, you know, how much degregation we're getting out of the solar panels because it's only a little bit at a time. If it's about a 100 watts a year, well, then of course that's going to take several years for

13:28 it to see. But overall, they're still performing pretty well and not too far off of what I normally see in the backyard. Now, I have had questions where people say, "Well, how much hotter is your roof?" Well, in order to effectively test that, you have to have a control. I don't have another RV with

13:44 no solar panels on the roof. Everything else is broad-based opinion, but since I do test stuff a lot, at least I can give you maybe a little bit more of an experienced opinion because RVs are horrible as far as their insulation, right? So, if the sun is on this wall, this wall gets hot. If the sun is on

14:02 that wall, that wall gets hot. And it's the same thing with your roof. Now, right now, this has a lot more insulation in it than this does. This is cool right now. There's not much heat or anything there because the sun's not hitting it. But the sun is hitting the ceiling as we just saw a minute ago. And

14:17 if I put my hand here, this isn't any warmer than this sidewall here. Mainly because you're also, you know, touching the most inner surface. The same thing with this. But this isn't any warmer. That's not any warmer. And I can't really touch it any more than about here. So, just to give you my honest

14:37 opinion, there is no difference in these two walls. As far as the ambient temperature, I didn't bring a heat gun, but surface temps for both of these, I can't tell a difference. Now, when the sun is on this wall, it's hot. I can tell you that. Okay. So, what did these tests show? Well, we're still putting

14:54 out good power, but we are starting to now see some early degragation and also some panel damage as far as what's happening with those cells. Now, they are fiberglass panels, and if you know anything about fiberglass, you will see discoloration that happens on the surface, especially when it's thin. But

15:09 we're now going to go over pros and also cons. Okay, pro number one, they're getting better every year. New designs keep improving performance and also durability. Number two is ease of installation. You have no racks, you have no drilling. So, this really makes it easy for those that are maybe not so

15:25 good at DIY, but still want to take advantage of solar. Number three, no roof penetrations. This means less risk of leaks and fewer maintenance issues. Number four is lightweight. These only weigh 10 lb versus a rigid panel that is comparable is about 25 lb. And a lot of people who install these super

15:44 structures that could be 1,000 lb are taking away from their overall payload and not to mention putting more stress on their axles because they still think they're going to be able to fill up their trailer with the same amount of gear that they normally want to take. Number five is that they are

16:00 aerodynamic. they sit flush, reducing wind drag and also still being able to keep the same miles per gallon that you would normally get versus a rigid setup. You'll probably lose just a little bit over long distance trips. Number seven is that they are safer in the worst case scenario. If one flies off, which

16:17 hopefully it never does, it is far less dangerous to have a flexible flyoff than a rigid one, which can cause serious damage or even death. And regardless if one flies off or not, you are ultimately responsible for whatever happens when you are towing this, even if you didn't install it. So, make sure you're on your

16:33 roof at least a couple times a year to do your periodic maintenance. Okay. Cons. Higher cost. Typically, these run 30 to 50% more expensive than your average rigid panel of the same wattage. Now, they are getting cheaper, but still they are more expensive at this time. Number two is lower output, especially

16:51 when it's hot outside. If a typical 200 watt rigid panel is pulling maybe 175 watts out of it, well, you may see 140 to 160 out of an equal flexible type panel on a hot day. Number three is they take up more space. Flexible panels are typically larger than rigid panels of the same wattage and these can be about

17:12 four, six, even 8 in longer and maybe even an inch or two wider. So larger footprint means less solar panels you may be able to get for your installation. And number four is going to be the shorter lifespan. As we've seen, they still don't last like we would hope, but they are getting better.

17:28 But when it comes to extreme conditions, like I said, if you can store these inside or if you do plan to use these in cooler areas, then they may still be beneficial for you. Now, despite the extreme heat and also the mileage, these solar panels have held up better than expected where most people said they

17:44 would probably be dead in about a year. Now, they're definitely not perfect, but the good news is flexible solar panels are always getting better every year, so we will see better performance and better durability as time goes by and tech evolves. Now, I'm excited to wrap this test up and move on to a new one.

18:00 I'll be removing all these solar panels soon, so if you guys want to follow along, make sure you're subscribed. And if you found this useful, make sure to smash that like button. All right, so what do you guys think? Would you still consider flexible solar panels, especially if you can stay away from

18:12 those extreme temperatures and maybe even store them indoors, or would you just stay away from them altogether? Drop your thoughts down below. Thanks for watching. I hope to see you guys another