Air conditioning for off grid camping
I have purchased 1 brand new Honda Generator and am thinking about buying another one to hook in tandem for my bumper pull to generate enough power to run air conditioning when camping off the grid. I...
Forum Discussion
Portable like the Yeti line sold for off-grid recreational use?
There is a scale problem, e.g. the largest Yeti stores 1200 watt-hours (like a single large RV storage battery) which might be enough for 1-hour run-time on a smaller RV air conditioner (except that you aren't really supposed to run the battery all the way down). Then you are looking at 27-54 hours recharge time from the 90 watt solar panel. So portables are short of the A/C's power needs by a factor of maybe 8 to 10 in moderate climates, much more in severe heat climates.
People do run A/C from mostly solar, in all-electric motorcoaches with 8-12 KWH storage capacity, charging from 500-2000 watts of solar panels. That's a lot of battery weight to carry, although lithium battery technologies can bring the weight down at a price. In case solar can't keep up, these coaches can recharge or power equipment from a generator, or sometimes a large alternator on their primary engine. I think RoadTrek has scaled this down to a van size motorhome with 9.6 KWH storage, 240 watts of solar, and charging from the engine.
There is a scale problem, e.g. the largest Yeti stores 1200 watt-hours (like a single large RV storage battery) which might be enough for 1-hour run-time on a smaller RV air conditioner (except that you aren't really supposed to run the battery all the way down). Then you are looking at 27-54 hours recharge time from the 90 watt solar panel. So portables are short of the A/C's power needs by a factor of maybe 8 to 10 in moderate climates, much more in severe heat climates.
People do run A/C from mostly solar, in all-electric motorcoaches with 8-12 KWH storage capacity, charging from 500-2000 watts of solar panels. That's a lot of battery weight to carry, although lithium battery technologies can bring the weight down at a price. In case solar can't keep up, these coaches can recharge or power equipment from a generator, or sometimes a large alternator on their primary engine. I think RoadTrek has scaled this down to a van size motorhome with 9.6 KWH storage, 240 watts of solar, and charging from the engine.
