Travel Mode: Accurate Solar Forecasts for Your Portable Panels, Anywhere

Portable solar panels deserve a portable forecast

If you've got portable solar panels strapped to your campervan roof, folded out on a campsite, or propped up at a festival, you already know the question: how much am I going to generate today?

Until now, Sun Hours answered that question for your home. Great if you're sat in your living room. Less useful when you're parked up at a campsite in the Lake District or a clifftop in Cornwall, wondering whether the battery will hold through the night.

Travel Mode fixes that.

What Travel Mode does

Travel Mode temporarily updates your solar forecast location to wherever you actually are. Open the app, tap the Travel Mode icon, and you've got two options:

Use My Location — the app uses your phone's GPS to pinpoint your exact position. If you're parked in a field somewhere between Keswick and Penrith, that's the forecast you'll get.

Pin on Map — scroll and tap anywhere on the map to set a custom location. Useful if you're planning a route and want to check how much solar you can expect at a future stop, or if GPS is unreliable.

Once Travel Mode is active, every forecast in Sun Hours — today's kWh, the 7-day view, the hourly generation curve — is calculated for that location, not your home. Your panels, your setup, the real conditions at your pitch.

Going home is one tap

When you're back, open Travel Mode again and switch back to your home location. The forecast reverts instantly. Sun Hours doesn't forget your home setup — it's always waiting there.

Why location matters more than you might think

Solar generation isn't just about how many panels you have. Where you are changes the numbers significantly.

On the same day, the same 200W folding panel might generate 0.6 kWh under coastal cloud cover in Pembrokeshire and 1.1 kWh on a clear hilltop in the Yorkshire Dales. That's not a small difference — it's the difference between a fridge running comfortably overnight and one that doesn't quite make it.

Sun Hours uses real-time cloud cover and solar irradiance data localised to a resolution of a few kilometres. Set your pin, and you're getting a forecast that reflects actual conditions at your pitch — not a generic estimate for "somewhere in the north of England."

The kit that makes Travel Mode most useful

Travel Mode is designed for anyone whose solar panels move with them:

Campervan and motorhome solar — roof-mounted panels that follow the van wherever it goes. Whether you're wild camping in Scotland or on a site in Brittany, Travel Mode keeps your forecast accurate to your actual location.

Folding and portable camping panels — the kind you prop up outside the tent or lean against the van. 100W to 200W folding panels are hugely popular for camping because they pack small and set up quickly. Travel Mode gives you a forecast that helps you decide whether today's the day to run the electric pump, the kettle, or just stick to the gas.

Solar generators — paired with a portable power station like an EcoFlow or Jackery, a 200–400W panel can keep a camping setup running almost indefinitely on a good solar run. Knowing the generation window lets you plan charging cycles intelligently.

Festival solar — a growing number of festivalgoers bring panels to keep phones and speakers charged without hunting for power points. If you're at a three-day event and want to know which afternoon is best for bulk charging, Travel Mode has you.

What a typical camping solar day looks like

A well-positioned 200W portable panel on a clear UK summer day generates roughly:

• Peak hours (11am–3pm): 150–190W continuous output — strong enough to charge a 100Ah lithium battery from flat in 4–5 hours
• Morning and evening: 40–100W — useful for topping up and powering low-draw devices
• Daily total on a good day: 0.9–1.3 kWh at a southern UK location, 0.7–1.0 kWh in Scotland or on an overcast day

Those numbers shift meaningfully with cloud cover, and that's exactly what Sun Hours accounts for. A day forecast at 70% sun gives you around 70% of those peak figures.

Getting the most from your travel solar setup

A few things that make a bigger difference than most people expect:

Panel angle matters. At a UK latitude, tilting panels to roughly 35° and pointing them south gives the best results across the day. Flat on the ground loses you 15–20%. Propped on the windscreen-side dashboard of a van pointing east gives you great mornings but nothing after noon.

Shade is brutal. Unlike rooftop panels with optimisers, most portable setups wire panels in series, meaning partial shade on one panel cuts the whole array's output. Position panels in the clearest spot available, even if that means running a longer cable.

Know your best window. The hourly chart in Sun Hours shows you exactly when your location's generation peaks today. On a partly cloudy day, that window might only be 2–3 hours — worth being plugged in and charging for.

Pair with a battery. The classic camping solar combination is a folding panel feeding a 12V AGM or lithium leisure battery. The battery absorbs generation throughout the day so you can draw power in the evening when the panels are down.

Travel Mode is free to use now

Travel Mode is currently available as a free preview of a future Pro feature. That means you can use it at no cost while it's in preview. Open the app, tap the Travel Mode van icon at the bottom of the screen, and set your location.

If you're heading off this weekend — or planning a summer of camping — give it a try. Your forecast goes with you.