I got to thinking about a short/medium length power outage and what would be some good steps to take. I’ve got generator and fuel but I thought a deep cycle battery with a solar panel I could set out when needed might be a good idea to keep a chest freezer running rather than running a generator. Has anyone tried anything like this? I’m open to suggestions.
Solar backup
- Thread starter Whoknows
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MacEntyre
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Inverter wastes a lot of power. Best to use a DC freezer (like on a sailboat) in a battery/solar panel setup.
I saw a solar panel and "generator" set up the other day on tv. Outdoor channel probably. 100 watt panel that could be expanded to 400 watt. Will not power much. My bud down in Flow Rida has one. They get Hella storms and hurricanes. He says it will charge phones, run a ham radio and a dorm sized fridge, thats it.
Solar is great but to do much you have to go big. Our cabin has 600 watts of panels and it feeds to 24v, 100 amp lithium batteries. If it's just lights, tv for 2 hrs a night, radio during day- it will last oll weekend with no problem. But if we run the window AC, it will drain them in about 5 hrs. If I use my car fridge, It will last most of weekend if the sun is shining. And this is using Lithium batteries that can discharge to 0%. A lead battery is going to only going to go to 50% before you start hurting the battery. Now if you are running a genny during the day and it has some power not being used, you can charge up batteries at same time.
This can help you figure out how much you need: https://www.solar-electric.com/solar/calc/
This can help you figure out how much you need: https://www.solar-electric.com/solar/calc/
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OP
My thoughts are to charge the battery/batteries with the generator when I do have it running or as needed but also run some panels when I’m able to. The idea being the panels may not be enough to 100% keep the battery charged but it’ll extend the time I can use it without running a generator. It’ll be solely be for running a chest freezer.
Popular in the RV World to have multiple solar panels and lithium batteries to be semi or even fully off-grid. It all comes down to how much you want to spend to have the convenience of not running a fossil fuel generator.