Solar & Hydro Yield Record PDFArray Configuration, Shading Survey & Output Log

The dangerous number in a solar installation is voltage on a cold morning, not current in the heat.

Panel voltage rises as temperature falls. The worst case a charge controller ever sees is a bright, still, freezing morning at the start of a season, and it is precisely the morning nobody is thinking about the array. Exceed the controller's input limit once and the unit is finished.

Model Y1 shows you how to work out that figure from your own panel's temperature coefficient, so you can compare it against your own controller's limit. This record states neither. A coefficient taken from the wrong datasheet is worse than no calculation at all.

Depending on how the panels are wired and what bypass diodes are fitted, one shaded cell can take a whole string with it. The shading survey is a single day of attention, four or five observations between morning and evening, each one photographed, and it explains years of readings that otherwise look like bad luck.

In the Fillable edition every line has a field, sized for a thumb rather than a stylus. In Adobe Acrobat Reader, free on computer, iPhone and Android, the cold-morning check works itself out from your own coefficient, and every month of the yield log shows its specific yield and its coverage; the shading survey and the hydro runs calculate themselves too. The Pencil & Print edition is ruled for handwriting in GoodNotes or Notability, or on a clipboard. Both come in A4 and US Letter and work offline.

Hydro output rises roughly with the cube of speed, so half a knot matters far more than it feels like it should. Model Y5 derives the constant for your turbine, with your propeller, at your tow depth, behind your hull. Three runs at different speeds and you have a generator curve that exists nowhere else, and a realistic answer to what a night watch actually costs you.

Kilowatt-hours per rated kilowatt is the only measure that lets you compare your array against a bigger one, against last summer, or against a chandler's claim about what a fourth panel will add. Model Y4 gives it to you in one division, and the 24-month log gives you two seasons of it.

No page here tells you to fit a fuse, size a cable, wire a string, program a controller or mount a generator. Part VI is fourteen lines recording that a competent person verified the installation, with their qualification and the date. Those are questions to put to your electrician, not a checklist for a Saturday afternoon.

The owner who has just had the array fitted. Reference page and commissioning readings now, while the datasheets are still on the chart table. Per-string figures taken on a new installation are the only honest baseline you will ever have, and a weak string is far easier to argue about with the installer this month than next year.

The owner thinking about another panel. Specific yield first, then the shading survey. Most boats that feel short of solar are shaded rather than undersized, and a morning of observation is considerably cheaper than a fourth panel that spends half the day in the shadow of a bimini.

The liveaboard through a northern winter. The 24-month log with consumption beside generation is your page, because your problem is not summer, it is the four months when the array cannot carry the boat. Two seasons of it tells you exactly how big the shortfall is and in which months, which is the number a generator or a shore-power decision should be made on.

The long-distance cruiser with a towed generator. Model Y5 and three runs at different speeds. Hydro output rises with the cube of speed, so a curve built on your own hull is the difference between planning a night watch honestly and hoping. Nobody else can give you that curve.

The owner whose controller has already failed once. Start at Y1, with your own panel's coefficient and your own controller's limit. Cold-morning voltage is the commonest explanation and the easiest to check from a desk, and if the figures are close you have something concrete to take to your electrician.

The Lithium record covers what stores the energy and how the bank is ageing. This one covers what generates it and whether there is enough. Together they are the complete paper history of a modern DC installation: the one system aboard a surveyor cannot assess from an afternoon's inspection.

This document records, structures and compares figures that you supply. It publishes no panel rating, no temperature coefficient, no controller limit and no expected yield, and it reaches no conclusion about any installation.

Model Y1 is a calculation performed on figures you supply; it is not a determination that any installation is safe. Array and charge-controller work belongs to a qualified marine electrician working to the standards that apply where your vessel is flagged and used.

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2026 Edition, Revision 2.1, AML-ELEC-2026-02. Apex Marine Labs designs the organisational process behind good seamanship. Our documents record and organise; they do not replace a certified marine survey, an installation standard, or a qualified marine electrician.