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There are a few basic principles behind working out your run time and power requirements of your off-grid camping set up. You'll need to answer the following questions:
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How much will my appliance draw?;
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How big is my battery bank? and;
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How much charge will my solar panel or solar blanket put into my battery bank?
If this all seems overwhelming, don't worry; we are here to help! Firstly, you will need to understand how many amps per hour your fridge draws. Let's look at a typical example of a 46L portable fridge that draws an average of 1 Amp per hour, over 24 hours. Which means that in one day the fridge draws 24Amp hours. We have now calculated our load, which is 24 Amp Hours.
Now, let's say that our camping battery is a 50Ah Lithium Battery. A lithium battery has a 80% Depth of Discharge which means there are
40 usable Amp Hours (50*0.8 = 40). So if our 46L fridge is pulling out 24 Amps per day, my battery will run it for over a day and a half without any solar input!
Now this brings us to our Solar input. You could use either a Solar Panel or Solar Blanket to help run your camping fridge. A typical 160W portable Solar Panel that is in direct sunlight will provide an input charge current of nearly 9 Amps per hour. If the solar panel works off 4.5 hours of available sunlight, we have a total input of 40.5 Amps per day.
We now have 24 amps coming out, and 40.5 amps going in. This means that if the sun is available, our camping battery is going to stay charged up and we are given power indefinitely. This is how we are able to stay off-grid while camping!
Recharging your battery with a solar blanket will allow you to travel off-grid!
With these products, we have more than enough power left over to charge mobile phones, laptops, led lights and 24V inverters. However, if the weather does decide to close in, and we lose sun all together, we will still get nearly three days of running our fridge.
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Need more help on what your camping battery will run? Check out our SOLAR POWER CALCULATOR or give one of our experts a call on 1300 400 122.
If you'd like to learn more about different types Caravan Batteries: Lithium, Gel and AGM, then view our article HERE.
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DISCLAIMER* Please note, this advice is general in nature and we strongly recommend consulting the product manual and where relevant, a professional installer.
