Solar blanket vs folding panel vs fixed roof panel for Australian touring

Rated watts are close to meaningless as a way of choosing between these 3 formats. The same 200W badge does about 2.6 times as much work on a clear summer day aimed at the sun as it does lying flat on a roof in a southern midwinter, and the panel is identical in both cases. This page compares what each format is, who it suits, and what it costs you when it fails a long way from help. It stops before the wiring, and it says so below.

Products compared

3

Dimensions

8

Physically tested

NO

Figures last checked

25 July 2026

The 3 things counted above are formats, not units: a fixed rigid panel, a hard-frame folding panel, and a blanket or mat. This page compares the formats. It names specific products only where an Australian retailer listing was observed on the date shown, and it links to exactly one of them.

These picks come from published manufacturer specifications, Australian retailer listings checked on the date above, and owner-reported experience treated as a pattern rather than as proof. We do not physically test the products we compare. Read the method in full.

Where this page stops

What the number on the panel actually means

Every portable panel sold in Australia is advertised with a wattage, and by convention that figure is meant to be the panel’s maximum power at Standard Test Conditions. Written out, those conditions are irradiance of 1,000 W/m2, a cell temperature of 25C, and the standard air mass 1.5 reference spectrum. Almost every argument on this page follows from the fact that you will never meet all 3 at once. Note that the 25C is the cell, not the air: a panel in the sun runs far above air temperature, so the rating point is a mild spring morning, not a January afternoon.

The part that is usually asserted and should not be

Nothing in Australian law or in the Australian standards requires a 12V camping blanket, mat or folding panel to actually be tested at those conditions, or to have its rating independently verified. AS/NZS 5033:2021 is an installation and safety standard rather than a power-rating standard, and it excludes small arrays and separately excludes arrays in vehicles, boats and transportable structures, which is this entire segment. Flash testing to the international module standards is only compelled through the Clean Energy Council approved modules list, and that list governs grid-connect approval and rebate eligibility, not camping gear. The wattage on a solar blanket is therefore the manufacturer’s number, not a measured one.

That is not a theoretical gap. The magazine 4X4 Australia warns in its own portable panel guide that the segment carries sellers advertising outputs their panels cannot physically reach, and it gives readers a defensive check: compare the unfolded area against the claimed watts. Worth being honest about how blunt that check is. The rule of thumb usually quoted, roughly 0.0055 m2 per watt, implies about 18% module efficiency, which is below what good monocrystalline achieves now. Current high-efficiency mono can make a genuine 200W in about 1.05 m2, and an ordinary module needs closer to 1.2 m2. So treat a shortfall of less than about 10% against the rule of thumb as a reason to ask for the datasheet, not as proof of an inflated badge. The fixed panel this page links to measures 0.88 by 1.22 metres, about 1.07 m2, and is a genuine 200W panel.

The stronger check is documentary. Ask whether the seller publishes maximum power voltage, maximum power current, open circuit voltage and short circuit current rather than a bare watt figure, and whether it publishes a temperature coefficient. If the badge is inflated, every estimate below is inflated by the same proportion, because every estimate below starts from the rating. One terminology warning while we are here: on Australian solar pages the abbreviation STC almost always means a small-scale technology certificate, which is a rebate instrument and has nothing to do with a panel’s rating, so this page spells out Standard Test Conditions every time.

The loss chain, named term by term

Most advice collapses everything below into a single derate figure. That is a reasonable planning shortcut and it is the wrong tool for choosing between formats, because the whole difference between a blanket and a roof panel lives inside 2 of the terms it hides. Every factor below is a planning assumption, stated so you can change it.

The 3 formats, how each is built, and what fails first

A note on what follows. No Australian brand publishes failure rates by format, and we have not gathered our own, so this section reasons from how each format is constructed rather than from a failure database. Construction is a reliable guide to failure order, because the part that fails first is almost always the part carrying a load it was not designed around.

Fixed rigid panels

Silicon cells laminated between polymer encapsulant and tempered glass, in an anodised aluminium frame, with a sealed junction box, bypass diodes and a pair of leads on the back. It is the oldest and by far the most mature construction in the category, and it is the one the whole rooftop solar industry is built on.

What fails first is not the panel.On a touring vehicle the failure sequence is the mounting and the penetrations: mounts that let go on a roof reaching surface temperatures no adhesive datasheet was written around, bracket fatigue where a rigid frame is bolted to a flexing roof skin, and the point where the lead passes through into the vehicle. After that, the junction box seal, then the bypass diodes. The laminate itself typically outlives the vehicle. The 2 hazards worth planning around are a branch on an overgrown track, and the fact that you cannot see the roof from the driver’s seat: a cracked roof panel can keep producing at a reduced output for months, and the first sign is a battery that no longer quite recovers.

It also stops being yours when the vehicle does.A bolted roof panel is effectively part of the vehicle: it does not move to the next 4WD, it has no second-hand market of its own, and whatever it added to the vehicle’s value is decided by the buyer, not by you. Both portable formats go in the back of the next car and both sell readily used.

Hard-frame folding panels

Usually 2 or 3 rigid glass panels hinged together into a suitcase, with fold-out legs, a padded carry bag and a regulator strapped to the back. It is the format that tries to have both arguments: the durability of glass, and the ability to be angled at the sun.

What fails first is everything that is not the panel. The hinge, the latches, the legs and the leads all carry cycles that the glass does not, and the regulator supplied in the kit is frequently the cheapest component in it. The bag goes early and its loss is worse than it sounds, because an unbagged folding panel travels with its glass exposed to whatever else is in the back.

The real cost is weight and bulk. Glass and aluminium in a hinged case make this the heaviest and most awkward format per rated watt, and weight is the reason a folding panel gets left packed on a short stop. A panel that does not come out earns nothing.

Blankets and mats

Thin or flexible cells laminated into a polymer sheet, bonded or stitched to a fabric backing with reinforced eyelets, folding down to a fraction of the packed size of the equivalent glass panel. Heavy-duty mats sit between the 2, adding an abrasion-resistant outer layer and usually a regulator in a sewn pocket.

What fails first is the fold. Repeatedly flexing a laminated cell and its interconnect ribbons at the same lines is the load case this format is defined by, and microcracking there is progressive rather than sudden: the blanket keeps working while quietly making less. After the fold lines, the eyelets tearing out of the fabric, then the junction where the flying lead exits the laminate. There is no glass to break, and equally no glass to protect the cells from being walked on, dragged over gravel or packed away with grit inside the fold.

The advantage is unambiguous and it is not electrical. A blanket can be carried out into the sun while the vehicle stays under a tree, angled in the morning and again after lunch, and packed into the space a folding chair would take. Everything good about this format follows from position, and everything bad about it follows from the fact that you have to be there to use it, to watch it, and to bring it in. It is also the format that walks off a campsite while you are at the beach.

Parts, warranty and who fixes it here

A rigid panel has almost nothing to service, so the Australian question is narrow: is there an Australian entity standing behind the warranty, and will it ship a replacement to where you are rather than asking you to return one? Both portable formats invert that. Their failure points are the hinges, latches, legs, leads, eyelets and the regulator in the pocket, and those parts are rarely sold separately by anyone. In practice a blanket with a torn eyelet or a dead regulator is a warranty conversation or a replacement, not a repair, which is worth knowing before you buy the cheapest one.

Angle is the largest single variable, and it costs nothing

Direct sunlight arriving on a panel scales with the cosine of the angle between the panel’s face and the sun. That single fact does more to a day’s output than the difference between any 2 panels on the shelf. Off by 30 degrees costs about 13%. Off by 45 degrees costs about 29%. Off by 60 degrees costs half.

The reason this matters so much in Australia is that a flat-mounted panel’s angle error is set by the calendar, not by the installer. The sun’s height above the horizon at solar noon follows from 2 numbers: your latitude, and the sun’s declination, which swings between roughly 23.4 degrees north and 23.4 degrees south across the year. In an Australian summer that puts the sun almost overhead, which is why a horizontal panel does surprisingly well in January. In midwinter it does not.

Run the same arithmetic at the December solstice and every one of those cities lands between 94% and 100%. That is the whole shape of the argument in 1 line: in summer a flat panel is very nearly optimally aimed at noon anywhere in Australia, and in winter, south of about Brisbane, it is aimed at roughly half the light available to it.

Across a whole day rather than at noon, the number that matters is that a horizontal panel in a southern winter receives roughly 60% of what a north-facing tilted panel receives, which is the 0.60 orientation factor used later. In summer the same comparison is close to a tie, which is why this page credits a flat panel with 0.95 in January rather than punishing it. The formats separate on exactly the days you are most likely to be short, and converge on the days you have surplus anyway.

The practical consequence is not that flat panels are bad. It is that anything you can tilt gets most of the winter loss back for the cost of standing something under 1 edge of it, and that a panel bolted flat cannot be given that back at any price.

Heat, and why the best solar day is not the hottest day

Silicon loses power as it warms. Panel datasheets publish a temperature coefficient of maximum power, typically somewhere in the band of -0.29% to -0.45% per degree above the 25C rating point for monocrystalline silicon, and they publish a nominal operating cell temperature, commonly in the mid 40s. Both numbers are on the datasheet of any panel worth buying. Neither is on the box.

Those 2 figures let you work the loss out. The standard model puts cell temperature at air temperature plus the nominal operating cell temperature minus 20, scaled by the irradiance over 800. With a nominal operating cell temperature of 45C in full 1,000 W/m2 sun, the cell runs about 31C above the air, so a 33C Australian day gives a cell at roughly 64C. At -0.38% per degree above the rating point, that is a loss of about 15% before anything else has gone wrong, which is the 0.85 in the table above.

This is where the formats separate again, and in the opposite direction to the angle argument. A framed panel standing off a surface with air behind it sheds heat from both faces. A panel bolted hard against a roof skin, or a blanket lying on ground that has been in the sun since morning, sheds heat from 1 face into air that is already hot. Assume roughly another 10C of cell temperature for either, which takes the loss to about 19% and gives the 0.81 factor used later.

There are 2 practical points in that. Standing a blanket up on a bag, a chair or a stick so air can move behind it is worth real watt hours, not just neatness, and it costs nothing. And a cool clear winter morning is genuinely the most efficient light a panel ever sees: a cell below 25C produces above its rating point, which is the one time the sticker understates it. That second point comes with a warning attached, because the cold clear morning that is best for the panel is the morning a lithium battery is least able to accept a charge. The questions worth asking about that are in the FAQ below, and the answer to them sits with whoever supplies the battery.

Dust, shade and bypass diodes

Nobody in the Australian market publishes a soiling derate, so the 0.95 to 0.88 band used here is a planning assumption rather than a measurement. What is not an assumption is that a horizontal surface is the worst possible geometry for it. A tilted panel sheds dust in rain and sheds some of it in wind. A flat panel on a roof collects red dust in an even film, keeps it, and has no runoff path at all. If you tour the inland with panels bolted flat, the soiling factor is doing more damage to your daily total than the difference between 2 brands ever will. Cleaning has a format trap in it, too: glass tolerates being wiped, and a blanket laminate does not tolerate being scrubbed, because the surface you are scratching is the optical path itself and the damage is permanent.

Shade is the harsher one and it is not proportional. Cells in a panel are wired in series, so the string carries the current of its weakest cell. Shade 1 cell and you do not lose 1 cell’s worth of output, you throttle everything in series behind it. Bypass diodes exist to route current around a shaded group, which is why a panel with 3 diodes typically loses about a third rather than all of it when a shadow falls across 1 corner. So a hard-edged shadow across a corner is survivable, while dappled shade under a gum, which puts a moving shadow across every group at once, is close to the worst case there is. It is worth checking whether a blanket has bypass diodes at all before you buy: the junction box or the specification sheet will say, and the answer is not always yes.

Why the south collapses in winter and the north barely notices

The angle table above is only half the seasonal story. The other half is day length, and the 2 effects compound. Multiply the noon beam share by the hours of daylight and you get a crude geometric index of how much direct sun a horizontal panel is offered across a day. Do that at both solstices and the ratios are stark: roughly 4.0 to 1 between midsummer and midwinter in Hobart, roughly 2.8 to 1 in Adelaide, and roughly 1.4 to 1 in Darwin. Latitude does not change the panel. It changes the season the panel has to survive.

That index deliberately overstates the real drop, because it counts only the direct beam. A meaningful share of what a panel receives is diffuse light scattered from the whole sky, which does not follow the beam geometry and does not disappear when the sun is low. Published peak sun hour figures include that diffuse component and are quoted for a north-facing panel on a sensible tilt, so they show a gentler seasonal swing than the pure geometry does. The direction is identical and the magnitude is softer, and the published capital city peak sun hour figures sit on the portable power page rather than being restated here. Worth being explicit about what they do not cover, because it is the most common sizing error on this subject: they describe a tilted plane, and a panel bolted flat collects roughly 60% of that in a southern winter.

The decision this drives is a simple one. If your touring is northern and dry-season, the seasonal argument barely applies and a fixed panel is a defensible choice. If you tour the south, or you travel year round, the format that can be angled is not a convenience, it is the difference between covering the fridge and not.

The same badge, 4 ways

Everything above collapses into a single comparison, and it is more honest as a ratio than as a promise. Take 1 panel, hold the rating, the cleanliness, the lead and the regulator constant, and change only 2 things: whether it is aimed or bolted flat, and whether it is midsummer or a southern midwinter. The 2 seasonal inputs are 5.5 peak sun hours for a clear Australian summer day and 3.0 for a clear southern winter day, both quoted for a north-facing panel on a seasonal tilt and both stated as planning assumptions, so each format carries its own orientation factor against that reference rather than having it buried in the input.

The one case worth putting a number on

The row that decides a purchase is the bottom one, so here it is in watt hours with the whole chain shown. Take a 200W panel bolted flat, on a clear southern midwinter day, at 3.0 peak sun hours, clean, with the temperature factor at 1.00, the orientation factor at 0.60, soiling at 0.95, the combined lead and tolerance allowance at 0.94, and the regulator anywhere in its 0.85 to 0.97 band. That delivers roughly 275 to 310 watt hours.

Now put a fridge next to it, using 1 figure and using it consistently. The fridge buying guide puts a 40L to 60L fridge at roughly 20 to 40 amp hours a day in mild weather and more in genuine heat. Take the middle of that mild band, 30 amp hours, which at 12.8V is 384 Wh. That is the only daily load figure on this page and it is used everywhere the page needs one. Against it, the flat winter panel is short by roughly 20% to 30% on a clear day, before a single cloud. The same 200W aimed at the sun delivers roughly 455 to 520 watt hours in the same winter and covers the day with something left over.

What this page will not do is turn that into a required wattage. The honest answer moves with your latitude, the months you travel, your actual load and how many overcast days you need to absorb, and a single number would be wrong for most readers in a way they could not see. The direction is what to take from it: a flat-mounted panel needs to be meaningfully larger than an aimed one to do the same job in a southern winter. Add dust and it gets worse again, since every case above assumes a clean panel and substituting the 0.88 soiling factor takes a further 7% off each figure.

The honest case against roof-mounted panels

Fixed panels are the format with the strongest technical case and the weakest situational one, and almost every page written about them argues the wrong half.

You park in shade when it is hot. This is the argument that decides it. The days your fridge works hardest, and therefore the days you need the most energy, are the hottest days. On those days every touring instinct you have, and every good campsite selection rule, puts the vehicle under a tree. The roof panel is then in dappled shade, which is the shading case bypass diodes handle worst, on the day it was most needed. A blanket walks out into the clearing. The roof does not.

Orientation is set by where you park, not by the sun. A fixed panel is aimed by the wheel ruts, the view, the wind direction and where the door opens, and nobody parks a vehicle to optimise a panel more than once. Flat mounting then compounds it: that is the worst geometry for winter sun and the worst for dust retention, and it runs the hottest because there is usually little air behind it. That is 3 of the 5 terms in the loss table all moving the same way.

What fixed panels are genuinely better at deserves equal space, because it is a real list. They work while you drive, while you walk, and while you are at the pub. They cannot be left behind at a campsite or lifted off the grass. They need no setup, which means they are used on every stop rather than on the stops long enough to be worth unpacking. They have the lowest sticker per rated watt. And they survive being ignored, which is more than can be said for any format with a hinge or a fold in it. Which is why the reconciliation most experienced tourers arrive at is not one or the other: a modest fixed panel that quietly tops up whenever the vehicle is in the open, plus something portable for the days you sit still in the shade. That is 2 purchases, which is exactly why the order they happen in is worth being honest about.

The purchase that beats both, if you drive most days

Worth stating plainly because it saves people money: if you are moving most days and you do not yet have managed charging from the vehicle, a panel is not your first purchase. An alternator feeding a properly managed charger recovers far more during a drive than any touring-sized panel does sitting still, and it works in rain, at dusk and under a tree. The DC-DC charger sizing guide covers what that decision involves, and the dual battery setup guide covers what it charges into.

See the KickAss Battery Box with integrated 20A DC-DC charger and accessory bundle listing↗ $500 to $630 as at July 2026

The 20A version has been discontinued. KickAss now starts its range at 25A, so what you find at this price is run-out stock, and the 25A replacement lists higher at full retail. Check which version you are actually buying before you order, and note the battery is not included.

That is not a recommendation on this page, and the full case for and against it sits on the portable power comparison. It is here because the honest order of purchase for a driving traveller is charger, then storage, then panel.

What each format costs, and what the sticker leaves out

Yield is only half a purchase decision. The other half is what you paid, and the honest version of this comparison prices each format as a working thing rather than as a panel. A bare fixed panel does not charge a battery. A blanket with a regulator in the pocket does. Ranked on the sticker alone, a bare fixed rigid panel is the cheapest thing here per rated watt, a blanket that ships with its own regulator sits above it, and a heavy-duty mat sits above that. Ranked on what it costs to have something that actually charges a battery, the gap narrows a long way, because the fixed panel still needs a regulator and a mount and the blanket does not. On that basis the premium for a basic blanket over a fitted fixed panel is modest, and what it buys is portability rather than watts. Only the heavy-duty mats carry a real premium, and what that buys is abrasion resistance.

This page does not publish a costed fixed install, and that is a deliberate change from an earlier version of it. The controller a given panel needs depends on that panel’s published voltages and on the battery it is charging, and the mounting depends on the roof. Pricing a generic bundle of parts against a specific panel produced a figure that was wrong, so the figure is gone rather than patched. Get the controller and the mounting quoted against the actual panel and the actual vehicle, and add that to the sticker before you compare formats on price.

There are 2 further adjustments worth making before any of it. A portable format has a cost that never appears on a receipt: it only earns on the stops where somebody deploys it, and a panel that stays in the bag on a 2 night stop has an infinite price per delivered watt hour. And a fixed panel has an install cost that is not on the receipt either, whether that is your afternoon on the roof or an auto electrician’s invoice.

The one panel on this page we have a link for

Worth being precise about what that means. Verifiable Australian solar listings are abundant, not scarce. What is scarce is our tracked set, and this is the only solar product in it, so it is the only one this page links to. The other formats are referenced editorially with no link, because we would rather name them honestly than not name them at all.

It is not a nominal 12V panel, and that changes what it can be paired with. Hardkorr publishes a maximum power voltage of 25.0V and an open circuit voltage of 29.5V, which puts it in the 24V class, and open circuit voltage rises further as the cell gets colder. Plenty of the small regulators sold alongside 12V blankets and mats are rated to accept less than that, so this panel is not interchangeable with them. Which controller suits it, alongside your battery and your vehicle, is a question for the battery supplier or an auto electrician, and this page will not specify one.

The specification is unusually complete, with 1 gap. Hardkorr publishes the cell type, the cell efficiency and all 4 electrical figures this page tells you to demand, which is better than much of the segment manages. What it does not publish is a temperature coefficient of maximum power, only an operating temperature range, and the coefficient is the figure the heat arithmetic on this page actually needs. Ask the retailer for the datasheet if you want to run the numbers on your own conditions rather than ours.

What to ask before you hand over money

None of these need you to know anything technical, and all of them are answerable by a retailer, a manufacturer or an auto electrician. They are the questions this page cannot answer for your setup.

• Does the seller publish the electrical figures and the unfolded dimensions? Maximum power voltage, maximum power current, open circuit voltage, short circuit current and a temperature coefficient, plus the size. A bare watt figure with no supporting numbers is a marketing claim, and the size is the only cross-check a buyer has.
• Is a regulator included, and is it matched to this panel and to my battery? Ask the battery supplier or an auto electrician to confirm the pairing rather than relying on a lithium-compatible badge on a box.
• What lead does it ship with, and how long is it? If the whole point of the format is standing it away from the vehicle, ask what that costs you and what the seller recommends for a longer run.
• What is the ingress rating, and of which part? The fabric, the eyelets and the regulator pocket are 3 different tolerances on a blanket, and only 1 of them is usually quoted.
• Who honours the warranty in Australia, and can I buy the parts that fail?Panel warranties are frequently split between the product and its output, and a portable format’s hinges, legs, leads and regulator are often covered for less than the cells. If replacement parts cannot be bought, the format is effectively unrepairable and that belongs in the price comparison.
• For a fixed panel, who mounts it and what does that cost? Get it quoted against your roof before you compare it on price with anything portable.

Choosing between the 3, in 4 questions

1. Do you drive most days? If yes, managed charging from the alternator will out-recover any of these formats, and the panel is a supplement rather than the answer. If no, the panel is doing the whole job and the format question becomes the important one.
2. Where will the vehicle be parked? If you camp in the open, a fixed panel works unattended and needs nobody to deploy it. If you camp in shade, in trees, or in a gorge, a fixed panel spends the day producing a fraction of its rating and something portable is worth the money.
3. Which months do you travel? Northern dry-season touring barely feels the seasonal swing. Southern winter touring feels all of it, and that is the case where the ability to tilt is worth more than extra rated watts.
4. Will you actually deploy it? Honest self-assessment, and the one people get wrong. A folding panel that is heavy, or a blanket that has to be watched, earns nothing on the stops where it stays packed. Choose the format that matches how you actually camp rather than how you intend to.

If the answers pull in different directions, the split answer is legitimate: a modest fixed panel for the unattended top-up plus a portable one for the days you sit still. Just cost both rather than buying the second one after the first disappoints.

What this page is built from, and what it is not

Outback Rated does not physically test the products it compares, and nothing here should be read as a claim that any panel has been handled, deployed or measured by us. Specifically:

• The physics is standard and checkable. Standard Test Conditions, the cosine relationship, solar declination, the nominal operating cell temperature model and the series-string behaviour behind bypass diodes are all published, well-established and verifiable against any panel datasheet or solar reference.
• The geographic figures are calculated from published latitudes and solar declination, with the method printed in the caption so you can repeat it. They are geometry, not weather, and they exclude cloud, refraction and diffuse light.
• The loss factors are planning assumptions, named individually and chosen to be defensible rather than flattering, so you can substitute your own. And every one of them starts from a rating we cannot verify: the wattage on a camping panel is the manufacturer’s claim, not an audited measurement, so if it is overstated then every estimate here is overstated with it.
• The prices are observed Australian retailer listings, published as bands with the date they were checked, never as fixed figures.
• There is no installation guidance here at all, by decision. An earlier version of this page carried cable, protection and regulator-selection detail. It was checked, found wrong in places, and removed rather than patched, because a site that cannot verify that material has no business publishing it. The buying comparison is what this page stands behind.
• What is deliberately missing is any per-product yield claim, any failure rate, any efficiency ranking between named panels, and any star rating. We have none of that data and we will not manufacture it. The full method, including what gets excluded and why, is published separately.

Frequently asked questions

What to do next

Work it in this order and the format chooses itself. Get your daily watt hours from the load rather than from a panel size. Decide whether the vehicle is moving or sitting. Decide which months you travel. Then, and only then, choose a format and a rating.

• Look at charging from the vehicle first if you drive most days, because it recovers more in an hour than any touring-sized panel does sitting still.
• Work out the storage the panel has to fill, and the chemistry that suits how you travel, since usable capacity decides how many overcast days you can absorb.
• Compare battery boxes, power stations and DC-DC charging on published 12V output ratings, including the published peak sun hour figures by capital city.
• See how 10 fridges compare on capacity, warranty and Australian service access, because the fridge is usually the load the whole solar decision is built around.
• Send a correction with the source attached if a figure here does not match a datasheet or a retailer listing. Corrections get checked against the source and the page records what changed.