What is a Charge Controller?
A Charge Controller (also called a ‘Charge Regulator’ or ‘Battery Regulator’) is a device that limits how much elecrtric current is captured and stored in a battery. A Charge Controller serves 2 main purposes:
- Keeps the battery from getting overcharged by the solar panels, which could limit the battery’s life, as well as potentially causing a fire.
- Keeps the electicity from leaving the battery and travelling back through the solar panel, which would reduce the amount of stored electricity available. Remember from school, that electricity will take the path of least resistance…so at night when the solar panel is no longer producing electricity, the current would want to try to go from the batteries back to the solar panel, without a charge controller.
It is important to use a charge controller anytime you are connecting a solar panel(s) to a battery, especially for long periods of time.
