I sized my solar panel to my pond pump. The pump is a brushless motor pump which uses 54 watts max and can pump a head of 33 feet. My solar panel is 100 watts and runs the pump well (even a little on cloudy days) and better yet when the panel is facing the sun.
Initially I wanted to track the sun and I was hoping to make a water/drip powered solar tracker, but I ran into issues at certain angles with my design. Here’s some pictures of that:
I abandoned the above project for something I can just turn by hand. Here it is:
If I can use rope and knots in a project, I probably will. This panel is suspended and adjusted by paracord and friction hitches. Here’s some pics of the build:
