Every RV needs some basic amenities while traveling for long trips away from civilisation. These include stove tops/cookers, lighting, refrigeration, water access and charging stations.
To run all the appliances in your RV you need adequate stored energy. For that you must choose an appropriate solar kit design for all the components needed. Sizing of solar panels and appliance selection is critical before PV installation.
Let’s talk about the installation of a solar system to run an average sized RV refrigerator. With the below system specifications, one can power cooking appliances, lights, fridges, water pumps and charging stations with good back up time for an entire 24 hours or more. These specifications can be used for custom designing or to check the vehicle appliance before placing the order so that later on only thing to consider is the size of the PV system.
There are multiple size refrigerators available for RVs but the best range for this product is from 200W to 450W for 4 to 8 cubic feet capacities. I have an Eva Cool 80L fridge in my bus. These compact size refrigerators are easily available and can be installed at any corner of the vehicle. Most of the time they come with the latest RVs but make sure to check the capacity of the refrigerator as it will affect the solar system size required. A bigger size or less energy efficient fridge will drastically impact the PV system for your vehicle.
Refrigerators should be compact and energy efficient thus saving the power consumed. In opposite to conventional cooling devices at home where we have sufficient electric power for whole day, RVs have limited energy generation. Due to limited sun hours per day, energy stored should be used wisely. There are different categories of refrigerators depending upon energy class.
Solar panels used can be poly- or mono-crystalline depending on the terrain you inhabit. Cool areas prefer mono-crystalline panels due to better efficiency. Let us discuss the components details now.
Components required to run an RV refrigerator are:
- Solar panels 150W x 4
- 12V Battery 100Ah x 6
- Inverter 2000W (to run other auxiliary loads)
- Solar Installation Kit (Cable, Drills, Insulation Tapes and Brackets)
Considering 5 hours of average sun hour we can generate 4500Wh of power with the above solar system components. With this generated power we can run a refrigerator for 24 hours. Let us discuss the procedure for installation of this solar system.
Place 150W panels on the roof and make sure the panels are well insulated and properly installed. Using MC4 connectors connect them in parallel and terminate them at the charge controller. The charge controller will transfer the solar power to the batteries.
With batteries optimum charged, the inverter will easily run the devices like lights, kitchen items and a refrigerator.
Enjoy fresh and chilled food wherever you go!