If you’re interested in retrofitting your RV to be solar-powered, you probably have questions as to how everything works and how long it’ll take to charge your batteries that you need to run your RV. The answer is varied depending on what appliances you want to run or use in your RV and how long you want to use them for. Here’s a breakdown of how it all works.
A solar panel takes the energy from the sun and converts it into power that you can use. The energy gets converted into DC battery power to charge your RV’s batteries. Think of it as a battery charger that works only when the sun is out. There are two different kinds of power, DC, which is direct current, and AC, which is alternating power. DC power runs different kinds of RV appliances like water pumps and lights, and AC power runs things like a TV, kitchen appliances or a hair dryer.
If you want to know how long you need to use your solar panels to collect energy to run your shower, your stove and watch an hour of TV you might need to use a power calculator tool. They’re easy enough to find online. The fact is how much power you need depends on many factors; how large your battery bank is and how many amps you plan to use per hour.
You also need to understand a few basic power concepts like amps, watts and volts. Amps are the amount of energy, and volts is like a regulation to how much energy is used. Volts can be compared to a controlled release system. Amps is the amount of energy and volts is how much is used how fast. Watts are what you get when you multiply the amps by the volts.
Most solar kits for RVs include inverters, battery chargers, fuse blocks, transfer switches and more so that you can easily get your RV set up for solar power. A solar regulator can also be important as it can prevent the solar panel from over charging your batteries. Inverters are needed if you want to convert your DC power to AC power.
So how much time do you need to collect energy to run your RV on solar power? The answer is a complicated one. It depends on how much energy you plan to use, what type of energy it requires, does it need to be converted to AC and how long you need the energy for. You need to budget the energy you collect. You need to decide if cooking dinner, taking a shower or watching TV is a better use of the solar power you’ve collected.