Att montera solceller på husbilen - äntligen solpaneler på taket!

Writer: Helena Bergström

We have finally installed solar panels on the motorhome! We have long had problems getting enough electricity when we are free camping, so it feels incredibly good that we now have solar panels on the roof. Now we are even more ready for the continued motorhome journey down through Europe!

Table of contents

Why solar panels on a motorhome?

Why would you want to install solar panels on a motorhome? Yes, of course you need electricity in a motorhome, for various things. For example, for lighting, heating, computers, mobile phones, kitchen appliances and the like. At campsites and caravan parks, you can often connect to an electricity pole, but you also want to be able to free camp or stand on simple pitches without electricity.

You need to be able to charge your computer, for example ... (picture from a previous occasion)

In the motorhome you have living room batteries, and with the help of an inverter you can convert 12 volts to 220, so that you can charge different things. The storage batteries are charged while driving and when you connect to the electricity pole, and then the electricity lasts "for a certain time".

The length of 'a certain time' can vary greatly. It depends, among other things, on the capacity of the batteries and on how much electricity you use. One way to increase the time is to get solar cells, so that you can charge your batteries even when you are not driving or connected to a power pole.

We've been struggling for a long time to get enough electricity when we're free camping. We have a slightly older motorhome, our old solar panel no longer worked and we have a lot of electronic equipment that we constantly need to charge: computers, mobile phones, drones, powerbank and other camera equipment. That's why we wanted to install solar panels on the motorhome!

After all, you want to be able to go camping - without having to worry about the electricity.

Solar panels for the motorhome

At the beginning of the year, we ordered solar panels from Camping4u - a camping shop that we like. Peter ordered three "soft" 100 watt solar panels, sized to fit the dimensions of our motorhome roof. He also ordered a solar controller (SmartSolar Victron).

The only thing missing now was cables to go between the solar cells and the controller (as the ones supplied are not long enough for our installation). Peter asked Camping4u for advice and got tips about the shop Hjertmans Boat accessories, so we completed the order there.

Installing solar panels on your motorhome

We never had time to install the solar cells on the motorhome before we set off on our long motorhome holidays in southern Europe. It's often like that in our lives - everything comes together and it's hard to be ahead of time. We therefore loaded everything we bought (solar cells, regulator and cables) into the guest bed and rolled away.

When we got down to Skåne, we visited our good friends Daniela and Göran, who run the stylish and professional travel blog Discovering the Planet. It was two nice days together and Göran also offered to help install the solar cells. Fantastic!

Very nice and fun for Peter to get help from another person who is technically savvy and thinks this stuff is fun! (I, Helena, can help with "assistance" and "manual reading", but it is not quite the same thing ...)

Peter started by washing the motorhome roof, and where they were going to glue he was extra careful by using t-red. They then glued the three panels in place.

The cables attached to the solar cells are not very long, so they had to splice these with the cables purchased from Hjertmans, in a junction box on the roof. In total, 15 metres of cable were used.

The cables going from the solar cells to the controller are four squares, while the cables going from the controller to the battery are 16 squares. Please note that we are not experts in this (you don't do it very often!). Here we tell you how we did it, based on various advice and tips we received.

Solar controller and app

According to what we have been told, the solar controller should be as close to the battery as possible. At the same time, according to the brochure, it should have air and ventilation. We chose to install the controller right next to our living room batteries, i.e. under the extra sofa in the motorhome.

However, the ventilation is limited here, so we chose to make several air holes for better ventilation. We would also like to install a small fan, but we have not yet found one that is small enough.

When we installed everything, we downloaded the "VictronConnect" app. After syncing the app with the controller, we can see how the solar cells are charging and what "level" the battery is in. Both fun and very useful!

For many, many years we thought we had bad batteries (and sometimes we bought new ones, and then they went "bad" quickly) but now we have realised that it is probably our meter in the motorhome that is wrong. The control panel is still signalling from time to time that the batteries are flat - while the new app says that the batteries are fully charged.

The app - which here shows "0 w" charge because we are connected to the electricity pole and because the batteries are fully charged (state = float).

Installing solar panels on your motorhome - ready for the long journey

We are really happy that we finally got round to installing solar panels on the motorhome. Now we feel really ready for our long trip to Europe. Lately, we have done two things that feel important for the motorhome trip to work: installing solar cells and installation of a fixed LPG tank. These two things make us feel much more prepared!

We are currently in Skåne, and we are ready to take the ferry over to Poland for further adventures on the continent. Follow the journey here on freedomtravel.se and on Instagram at @freedomtravelnews!

At the Lagunen car park in Malmö - ready for Europe!

Do you have solar panels on your motorhome?

Motorhome owners - do you have solar panels on your motorhome roof? How does it work? If you don't have a motorhome, do you use solar panels in any other way?