Quote:
Originally Posted by rlyoung1952
I normally camp with power. I have the residential refrigerator. Since I am not sure how much power it will use. I am concerned during the summer when I turn the refrigerator on at my storage facility will one battery power it through the night. Also will the 200 watt solar handle it during the day.
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I’m not all that experienced with residential fridge power use, but based on some quick reading I just did sounds like it’d probably use 2 or so kWh every day. It’s hard to say how your battery would do without knowing what type and how big it is, but I would doubt it’ll handle running a residential fridge. If you happen to have a 300 AH lithium, then you could probably run it over night. But if it’s a battery the rig came with it’s probably a cheap lead acid battery (unless you optioned for lithium). You could maybe get a couple hours running the fridge before draining the lead acid below 50%, and maybe 3 to 4 before completely killing it.
On the solar, if the 2 kWh per day estimate is correct then you would need 10 hours of 100% output from the panels to recharge. That’s just not going to happen. So, your solar wouldn’t be sufficient either.
Of course, this could change a lot if I’m way off on how much power a residential fridge uses. But, I’d be shocked if it were low enough draw for a single 12v battery to power over night. And, if I am wrong then I guess I’m going to figure out how to fit a residential fridge in my camper.
I’m a huge supporter of solar and lithium installs, but if you’re just needing to occasionally run your fridge off battery my opinion is you’re better off just using a generator or just not running the fridge off battery. Doesn’t seem worth the cost to me just to be able to run the fridge occasionally. Then again, I’m a guy who spent way too much putting a good sized system in my camper.