question

You didn't mention your battery Voltage. As you probably know, this controller charges the battery at 20A. With a 12V battery this controller will charge at a maximum power of ~240W. With a 24V battery it will charge at ~480W

You can put 1KW of panels into the charge controller, but it will only take the maximum power from the panels like I said above. There is.nothing wrong with this and will help on cloudy days.

Just make sure not to exceed the 100V input Voltage limit. Arrange those panels in 2 series 2 parallel and she'll be right.

"Would this work?"

I agree with the solution of WKirby, connecting 4 pannels would work most reliable in a 2x2 configuration, since the PV voltage is a strict limit which shouldn't be exceeded under any circumstance ( can damage the controller).

"Is there a down side to this plan?"

The downside is the controller can't utilize all the available PV power: e.g. it doesnt give you the option of using the ~1 KW of power during the day, without draining the battery.

Also after a long periods of low sun (when the battery gets drained), the sunny day won't be optimized to its full potential. So in case the battery can stand higher charging currents then 20A, a slightly larger model of MPPT might be worth looking at (e.g. 150/35; then 35 A of charging).

Basicly the question, if it is a downside, depends moslty on when you want to use the power.

If you plan to switch on extra consumers, on a sunny day, a bigger controller might be a good idea to optimally use the solar power.

Thanks guys,

I did use the Victron MPPT Calculator Excel sheet ( www.victronenergy.com/support-and-downloads/software#mppt-calculator-excel-sheet )

But I wanted to be sure there was not something I was missing.

I do like the sound of Victron gear, The 5 year warranty is a good start.

Ive read Energy Unlimited (Revision 9, June 2011) by Reinout Vader of Victron Energy

( www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/Book-Energy-Unlimited-EN.pdf )

Im looking at the Victron SmartSolar MPPT 100 volt /20 amp as its the largest I can see with load control built it, I know there is a 48 volt model, But Im still thinking 12 or 24 battery voltage should be fine for me

So far the only thing I own is the four 235 watt Trina Solar TSM-235PA05 Solar Panels

So thats where Im starting