Dry camping and solar power
I have a 20ft keystones hideout 177hls. I will be dry camping for 6 months from may to October. The only major issue I'm running into is powering my a/c unit. I understand that my 12v battery won't po...
Forum Discussion
Just to give you a very rough idea:
The AC unit on my camper used about 900 watts running. Let's say it runs for 25% of the time. That's 5,400 watt/hours a day. You would need about 1,500 watts of solar panels to make that much power on an average day. Let's assume half that power is used when the sun isn't shinning bright. You would need a battery bank capable of storing 450 Ah to make it thru one night. Often systems are designed to last thru about 3 days of cloudy weather. That would mean you would need a 1350 Ah 12v battery bank. In order to recharge the bank in one day while also running the AC you would need to double the solar array to 3,000 watts.
A 3kW off grid system installed turnkey (not that there's room on an RV) on a house would be around $20,000.
The AC unit on my camper used about 900 watts running. Let's say it runs for 25% of the time. That's 5,400 watt/hours a day. You would need about 1,500 watts of solar panels to make that much power on an average day. Let's assume half that power is used when the sun isn't shinning bright. You would need a battery bank capable of storing 450 Ah to make it thru one night. Often systems are designed to last thru about 3 days of cloudy weather. That would mean you would need a 1350 Ah 12v battery bank. In order to recharge the bank in one day while also running the AC you would need to double the solar array to 3,000 watts.
A 3kW off grid system installed turnkey (not that there's room on an RV) on a house would be around $20,000.
