
Think about rain falling on two buckets placed side by side. A bigger bucket will collect more water then a smaller bucket from the same length of time in the rain.
With solar power the solar panel and batteries represent the bucket. The panel collects the light, converts it to power and stores it in the batteries. Typically the bigger the solar panel the more light is collected.
Matching higher capacity batteries with a more powerful solar panel has two main benefits.
- More power is collected during the day.
- Any excess power can be stored in the batteries for use the next day - this means the batteries may not start each day from flat giving you the product a head start on a cloudy day in terms of performance in the evening.
Other factors can have an effect such as the:
- efficiency of the panel
- type of solar panel
- capacity of the batteries
- type of batteries used