Upgrading your RV to Solar

Going green seems to be the big thing these days and with RVs that means moving to solar power for off the grid camping and free power for the rig. But not everyone will benefit from the expense of solar. You need to ask yourself “is it worth the investment for the type of camping I do?” Not everyone will answer yes to this question. If you are someone who doesn’t then I am hopefull we had a hand in that choice. If you answered YES then I hope this article helps you get your rig setup to best suit your needs with solar.

Do you ever boondock with no shore hookup? If no maybe solar is not for you. If yes then for how long? When Bianca and I bought the BHive we would only look for places to go that had full hookups. We were concerned that if we were in in the middle of nowhere and ran our batteries down, we might have some issues. Of course we could run the generator but for how long? It’s loud at night and there are many places that don’t let you run it after quite hours. And what if the generator breaks down? Is solar a replacement or just a good back up plan? We had so many questions and not a lot of answers. There will be times when you find solar just isn’t enough and you need to run the generator. On days when the weather isn’t cooperating or when you have the RV parked in the shade, the generator will be your saviour. A generator can also power items a solar system will not without a large and costly battery bank.

For us solar meant independence. With solar we are not locked in to sites with electricity, now we can camp anywhere without worrying about running down the batteries.

How Much Power Do I Need?

So what do I need in terms of power to run my rig? This is a tough question. If it’s just you and your dog probably not much. Set the coffee pot for the morning, run some LEDs at night, check your email for a while then checkout facebook. You probably wouldn’t need a huge battery back or solar array for this kind of use but exactly what would you need? It’s important to remember your RV will run off of your batteries NOT solar panels. The more power you consume the larger your battery bank will need to be. Your solar panels will recharge your batteries. You want to charge the batteries fast, the bigger array you need. You see where all this leads. You really need to analyze your power usage.
We wanted to be able to run the refrigerator in the BHive 24 hours a day. That means 120 watt per hour X 24 = 2880, we also want to be able to run the tv for 3-4 hours thats 4 X 150 watts per hour = 600 Watt Hours Then there all the miscellaneous use during the day. We decided on 4 100 amp hour batteries at 12 volts = 12 X 100 = 1200 watt hours X 4 = 4800 Watt hours. That’s a good amount of juice. So now we had to figure out how fast we wanted to recharge them. With 600 watts of solar panels, if we had full sun, we could recharge our batteries in 8 hours. That’s not bad and that’s what we installed.

What kind of batteries will I need?

AGM, LiFe PO4, Flooded, so many different batteries to choose from and such a wide range of prices, what do I choose? Again this will depend on your usage. Regular deep cycle batteries, the kind your RV probably came with, are the least expensive and work well but they are heavy and do not have a large capacity compared to other batteries. AGM or advanced Glass Matt batteries have a higher capacity but like flooded batteries, have a limited number of recharging cycles. Lithium Ion or LiFe Po4 batteries are the most expensive but will last up to ten years and can be recharged thousands of times without damaging them. They also will recharge faster than other types of batteries.

How Much Is Solar Going to Cost Me?

That depends on a lot… What kind of batteries you are going use, the size, type, and number of panels you are going to install. There are so many variables and each system will typically be customised for the users individual needs. Many RVs come prewired for solar but keep in mind typically the system installed will only accept a small amount of amperage and not offer much in the way of sustainability. As an example, our coach came with 2 standard deep cycle batteries and was “pre- wired” for solar. A quick check of the system revealed the controller could only handle up to 190 amps of panels. When you are looking to boondock for a couple days this would not even keep the batteries charged. Without solar we found our batteries would only last for about 2-3 hours with the refrigerator plugged in and a small television on. After that we had to run the generator or turn on the coach to charge back up. And it takes a while for th batteries to recharge, sometimes several hours. We decided on 600 watts of panels, a 40 amp charge controller, and 4 X 100 Amp hour batteries at a cost of about $4500 dollars. So what did we get for that? Well now if I park the coach indoors with no sunlight the fridge will drop the batteries down to 79 percent after 48 hours. At that rate I could run just the refrigerator for almost 10 days in total darkness, that is never going to happen. With normal sunlight here in las vegas the batteries were back to full power in about 1 hour. Was it worth it? For us absolutely. I know I can park the rv and never have to worry about power again. for us that gives us the kind of freedom we were looking for when we bought the RV. Do YOU have to spend that much for solar? NO, it really depends on YOUR needs and what you want to do when your RVing.

If you have questions about solar for your particular situation, drop me a line ill be happy to help out.

Brian Lorenz