solar power observations

GlennWest · June 10, 2023

Now that summer is here and sun is plentiful we can run acs 24/7 and use no park power. Now if we run the clothes dryer, we will run out of battery before morning sun. That dryer really pulls the wattage. Really think I will use a gas dryer in my house or maybe heat pump dryer. Have to research that more. The mini splits are doable with my system. I intend to have additional solar on our property. Solar fairly cheap. Batteries costly.

Randyretired · June 10, 2023

I have experienced about the same. In the summer power from solar is plentiful but then comes winter. During the late fall and winter more power is used. We use the lights more and of course heat and so on but the solar is producing far less. The long nights stress the batteries and the short sometimes cloudy days produce way less. For off grid most solar systems need to be massively sized to scrape through winter. We are into to the longest days of the year now and solar is at its peak.

oldjohnt · June 10, 2023

I'm in Florida in the RV much of the winter often dry camping when the sun isn't at the peak angle, still as long as it's not rainy or cloudy with decent sunlight I can run off solar and lithium batteries and need no shore power..If not I fire up the genset for however long it takes to achieve 100% SOC maybe an hour or so subject to sun and loads. Even though you can discharge Lithium to 20% or even less, when they get near 40% I get an urge praying for more sun or firing up the genny lol. I have a Class C with limited roof space or Id add even more solar.

Best wishes

John T

2gypsies · June 10, 2023

It depends on what kind of power you need. We had 300w solar and stayed a week in Apgar campground, Glacier in a treed forest in the rain with a small opening of cloudy sky over our panels.

The same for winter in Arizona with some cloudy, cold days.

We used a propane heater and minimal energy. No washer/dryer, of course. Microwave just to heat things. No furnace.

Chad Heiser · June 12, 2023

We just spent a week boondocking in the desert south of St. George, UT. We ran one (of three) 15K BTU roof top air conditioners everyday from about 10:00 am until 5:00 pm. It was in the mid 90’s every day, so the AC was to keep the living area of the RV cool for the cat and dog (and my DW). In that week, I ran our generator for a total of about 5 hours. One of those hours was me testing the generator and a recent fix to keep it from overheating. The other four hours were to recharge batteries after a full day of mostly cloudy weather where the solar couldn’t keep up with the AC running.

We have a large system on our rig (3390 watts of solar, 1080 amp hours of lithium batteries and dual 5KVA inverter chargers). I intentionally built the system this large so we could live in our rig pretty much like we were plugged in, whether we were or not. It is nice to be energy independent, but it does come at a cost. Luckily for me as an installer/dealer I didn’t have to pay retail prices and my labor was “free” so it wasn’t a horrible cost.

GlennWest · June 12, 2023

6 hours ago, Chad Heiser said:

We just spent a week boondocking in the desert south of St. George, UT. We ran one (of three) 15K BTU roof top air conditioners everyday from about 10:00 am until 5:00 pm. It was in the mid 90’s every day, so the AC was to keep the living area of the RV cool for the cat and dog (and my DW). In that week, I ran our generator for a total of about 5 hours. One of those hours was me testing the generator and a recent fix to keep it from overheating. The other four hours were to recharge batteries after a full day of mostly cloudy weather where the solar couldn’t keep up with the AC running.

We have a large system on our rig (3390 watts of solar, 1080 amp hours of lithium batteries and dual 5KVA inverter chargers). I intentionally built the system this large so we could live in our rig pretty much like we were plugged in, whether we were or not. It is nice to be energy independent, but it does come at a cost. Luckily for me as an installer/dealer I didn’t have to pay retail prices and my labor was “free” so it wasn’t a horrible cost.

If i may ask Chad, How low do you pull your batteries.

Chad Heiser · June 12, 2023

3 hours ago, GlennWest said:

If i may ask Chad, How low do you pull your batteries.

My batteries never went below 50% during the week. My solar can keep up with a single air conditioner during the day and still charge the batteries back too 100% before the evening.