How Much Solar Panel Do I Need For My Rv

Solar panels are sold in varying sizes but a 100 watt panel is a commonly found size particularly for rvs.

How much solar panel do i need for my rv.

This is assuming you are considering using 12 volt rv grade panels. You will need at least 1 800 watts of solar panels to run your rv air conditioner. For our experiment 5 hours of direct sunlight without clouds x 6 amps generated per hour 30 amp hours per day that the solar panels are generating to recharge our rv batteries. This is also assuming of course you have a lot of battery power too.

It is not uncommon for a new neighbor to walk over and ask about our. That panel is rated at 100 watts at peak efficiency meaning on a 78 degree cloudless day at solar noon on the equator during the equinox. Reality is you only need as many panels as your batteries are able to store and your usage warrants. Most solar panels feature one hundred watts of power and are capable of producing about six amps for each peak sun hour.

Solar living is easy in monument valley utah. It doesn t matter how many panels you have if you don t have the battery bank to store the energy your panels are pulling in. I don t know too many people who rv under those conditions. The lower the tolerance percentage the better will be the performance.

These recommendations are based on the metric that you can produce 30 ah of battery charge using a 100 watt solar panel between 5 9 hours of sun exposure. If you have a smaller budget then this may be the overall limiting factor of your rv solar system. We suggest a battery bank of 800 amp hours. Most boondockers have between 200 to 400 amp hour battery banks.

This equals thirty amp hours a day meaning you would need two one hundred watt panels to fully recharge your rv. The typical solar panel found on most rvs range from 100 watts to 160 watts. 190 watt solar panel kit with 30 amp pwm charge controller ranges from 600 to 700. 190 watt solar panel kit with mppt 40 amp ranges from 950 to 1050.

The best solar panels for rv are likely to have up to 5 tolerance. For example a 5 5 percent of power tolerance on a 100 watt solar panel means it can yield 95 watt to 105 watt of power in real world conditions. A big misconception with rv solar is that you need 500 600 or 900 watts of solar for it to be worth it. Assuming we get 5 hours of direct sunlight we know a 100 watt solar panel will produce 30 amp hours per day.

Roof mounted panels are inefficient roof mounted panels won t deliver their advertised wattage. Sample rv solar kit cost as of january 2020.