How much solar power required?

TheLostOne wrote:
How much solar power is required to be self sustainable.

In order to answer this question you need to create a power budget based on your personal real-world energy usage goals...
Multiply the amount of time (in hours) you would like to use each item in your camper (lights, water pump, fridge, TV, A/C, microwave, laptop, cell phone charger, radio, etc...) by the number of amps it draws and then add the results for all of the items together... this will give you a starting point for how many amp-hours you are likely to use each day? Oh, and don't forget all the vAMPire loads like the CO & LPG detectors.
Once you are armed with this info, the folks here can help you determine how much solar you should plan for.

Based on your desire to be "self sustainable" (I am assuming that you mean not running a generator or charging from the truck's alternator), I would guestimate a starting point of 200W of solar and 200A/h of battery as the minimum you would find to be acceptable. With this much storage and charge capability you should easily be able to watch TV, keep lights on, use the water pump as much as you want, and operate the fridge (running on LPG of course) and get through the occasional cloudy day without depleting your battery.

If you're actually planning to run the air conditioner from your solar/battery/inverter system, you will need much more battery capacity and a lot more solar... plus a large power-hungry inverter. That said, if you have the desire, budget and space it can be done!

By way of example; I have 300A/h of battery and 328W of solar and if the sun is shining I can easily cook a meal in the microwave or run the A/C for a couple hours every day. I don't need to depend on any other power source unless I want to run the A/C for a long period of time. If I take the A/C out of the equation, and run the fridge on LPG, what I have fits my idea of "self sustainable". YMMV.

Cheers
-Mark