Take a look at the spreadsheet (xls format)
The purpose of this spreadsheet is to estimate the cost and weight of solar vehicle electrical systems.
Let's fill in the yellow cells with some design parameters. In this case, we would like to travel for 2 hours with 3/4 Horsepower (HP). Our estimate for solar cells is 300 Watts (W). We can quickly determine the number of (lead acid) batteries to reach this goal. In this case, the quantity is 3x 55Ah batteries. We can also estimate the cost and weight of those batteries.
The spreadsheet also tells how long the solar panels will demand to charge those batteries. In this example, you can see that it would take 2.4 days. I would like to use the vehicle daily, so that time is too long. Therefore, the spreadsheet has helped us determine that more panels are needed.
