We have used solar, wind, and other energy sources for quite a while now and we kept running into the same problem in our area with snow. Snow covers the solar panels and the panels stop. Now we do a combination of vertical solar panels and a wind turbine and this seems to have solved our problems.

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Horizontally installed solar panels get covered with snow and then they stop working so for critical applications we combine wind and solar technology. We've done this on our sailboat and on our Pinzgauer 712. Our Nav/Com board is solely powered by the wind/solar tower pictured at the left.

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The tower itself is constructed of stainless steel marine railing & connectors (Amazon & West Marine) and it is stabilized by a junction of the tower and the boat safety railing. This set-up has endured wind so strong that the vertical-axis wind turbine looked like a semi-transparent pink sphere and we've had no problems for the past three years since we installed it.

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The price for the wind turbine (about $300) has dropped to nearly half and the power output has almost doubled (600 watts). This particular one is 300 watts and each of the eight solar panels is 25 watts for a total of 500 watts and the footprint of the tower is less than one-foot square.

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This tower runs our GPS, a VHF radio, an LED light, a USB charging station for phones/tablets, a depth sounder, a backup GPS hand-held VHF radio, two all-weather video cameras, and a closed-circuit camera monitor.

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Because of the weight, we installed the wind turbine on the tower first and added the solar panels after the tower was installed. If/when this wind turbine quits on me I can replace it with a 600 watt turbine by snipping four wires, removing four bolts and the new one's in.