Starting Out with Solar Power Setups for Vanlife

Currently, no pun intended, my bus is running a 250watt solar panel with two 12v 100amp Lithium Iron batteries.  For a couple weeks I was fighting my electrical system.  Honestly I had no idea what I was getting into with solar power.  Solar is promoted as being this incredible thing that is going to save the world.  What being in the bus has taught me is solar power is pretty limited.  I’m going to share what I have learned about solar power setups for van life and what you need to know.

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Solar can take you a lot further with less fuel consumption.

Limitations on Solar Panels

When you are setting up a solar system, there are three components you need to be aware of right off the bat: panels, storage, and sytems control.  Panels are the most obvious part of a solar array.  You’ll see them in solar farms outside towns, street lights, and even homes.  Solar is very popular for vanlife because it means you don’t have to open a vein at the pump just to make sure your fridge works.

Solar panels are fairly limited.  I used to think my 250watt panel was extremely underpowered for what I needed.  I was only partially right.  With the original controller, the panel never really showed how much energy it was converting from the sun.  A generic happy face showed current going in to the battery, and when I was using the battery, the goal was to have the current flowing out a little slower.

With the Victron MPPT controller, I can see that even on the brightest of days, I’m only pulling about 180watts. Installing a second panel would help bump those numbers up and take advantage of a larger surface area, especially on cloudy days, but then you have batteries to consider.

Shady spots work great for campsites, but not that well for solar panels.

What You Need to Know About Solar Batteries

Installing another panel would be great and all, except even though my panel is never really cranking out the full 250watts, the two 12v 100ah batteries I do have go into absorption and float mode at around 13.8 volts.  More panels would just mean hitting that absorption/float mode sooner or in dim lighting.  Really that isn’t the problem.

We have lived with electricity for right around 150 years, give or take a decade. From flipping a switch to illuminate a room to throwing a bag of popcorn into a microwave to fall asleep to a movie, our power consumption is something we really take for granted.  This is not the case when you are living in a converted school bus or other campervan and relying on solar.

On most appliances you will see some numbers.  What you are looking for is wattage necessary to run that appliance.  A fridge uses about 70 watts when it kicks on.  A microwave uses anywhere between 750 watts and 1200 watts to melt butter or heat up leftovers.  The electric teakettle I was using pulled 1000 watts. Sure, my inverted is rated up to 1500 watts, but that doesn’t mean I have anywhere near that in my two 12v 100ah batteries.  

What Kind of Solar Controller Should I Use?

Your controller is what tells your battery how much electricity is coming in, how to store it, and how to use it.  It communicates between the panels, shutting off the flow of power when the batteries have reached a full charge and optimizing how the energy is stored chemically in the battery. 

The old controller I had did none of these. It was a PWM, which works great when you aren’t full-on charging a battery all day. It maintains the charge consistently. Even when the battery is consistently dead.  It just put a happy face up when the sun was shining and a sad face when my batteries had died overnight.

The Victron MPPT controller, allowed my batteries to get a full charge and even go into a float mode where they could store electricity in such a way that wouldn’t damage the system.  The old controller wasn’t even charging, come to find out, just maintaining a charge as it continued to ratchet down to dead.

Switch to Solar-Friendly Appliances

When I was boiling water in my electric tea kettle, I could watch the available volts drop from 13.1 all the way down to 12.5. Sometimes they would spring back up once the kettle clicked off. If you were using electricity at night, you could forget about that.

By morning, my batteries would be dangerously low and my inverted would be screaming at me because the fridge was kicking on several times every hour and using stored electricity.  If you drain a battery down to what is essentially dead, it started to ruin it.  My power was so drained I couldn’t even use my water pump for fresh water.  That’s a big problem when your destination in the winter is the desert.

Solutions for an Underpowered System

There’s a couple different ways to solve this problem.  The first would be to increase the number of solar panels and add more batteries to store more electricity.  At $350 per lithium battery, and around $150 per panel, that is a lot of money to just boil water. Plus the added weight and the mathematical gymnastics you need to do to calculate how big of a controller you’ll need just to make sure it all works.

Lots of rigs have electric hot water heaters, TVs, Starlink, air conditioning, electric heaters, and everything else dependent on electricity harvested from the sky.  Unless you have the real estate on your roof to support all of these things, there is a better option: get rid of energy consuming appliances.

I use a butane cooktop to cook meals and boil water for coffee.  I ditched the microwave, because honestly I never used my microwave in my house except to melt butter.  Every appliance I use I am careful to check the wattage to make sure I’m not going to overtax my system.  My priorities are keeping my food from going rotten, fresh water on tap (it doesn’t have to be hot), charging my laptop/phone, and having lights at night.  

By trimming everything down, that 178watts the solar panel is actually drawing has been more than enough energy for what I need it to do.  Most days it goes into float around noon and stays there until the sun starts to set.

Even on chilly mornings your solar is working. You can’t always say that about a generator.

Supplement Your Solar Power System

There’s a couple ways to supplement your solar system. From staying green to sticking with the old standards that work, here’s what you need to know before you go.

Backups That Work

The biggest drain on my solar system has to be the fridge. No matter how tough a fridge is built, all the hits they take on the road eventually break them down and cause them to be less efficient. I supplement my refrigeration system with something I know is always going to work.

Ice chests have come a long way over the years. Recently I added a Canyon Cooler to my bus. At half the price of a Yeti, my Canyon Mule will keep everything I need from the fridge at a cool temperature without electricity. This works great when it’s cloudy and the solar isn’t cranking out the amps like it needs to, or if the fridge flat out quits. Mine kept two 10lb blocks of ice around for over a week. My milk, butter, and veggies actually lasted better in the cooler than they have in the fridge.

The Canyon Mule is made in Flagstaff, AZ, and features a lifetime warranty against manufacturer’s defects and flaws in materials. Mine features a telescoping handle, sturdy wheels, and bear-resistant latches. Perfect for car camping, picnics, and just keeping your stuff cool.

What Should You Do About an Underpowered System?

Underpowered solar systems run the risk of ruining your very expensive batteries. By getting a proper MPPT controller and determining how much wattage/amperage you need to run appliances that are necessary for you, you can get a set up that will produce enough electricity for your needs. Be prepared to ditch some appliances, or supplement your system with more panels, batteries, coolers or generators as needed.

Solar Power Setups for Vanlife: What You Need to Know about Fossil Fuels

I get that we are supposed to be moving away from a dependence on fossil fuels, but with the technology we have right now, that is still pretty unrealistic and impractical.  Here are some ways you can reliably enhance your solar with the help of fossil fuels.

• Gasoline powered generator: Reliable power for anything from power tools to airconditioning.  The biggest drawback is how noisy generators are at campsites, especially if everyone is running one. Honda makes a quiet running generator, but you are paying for those reduced decibels.
• Propane/butane cookstove: Reliable cooking power on demand.  The biggest drawback is the added expense of fuel cannisters or lugging around large fuel bottles.
• Diesel heater: On my wish list for next year, diesel heaters (and gasoline types too) create a lot of BTUs to warm your vehicle (which is also important for solar battery life).  They can draw directly from your fuel tank or a small one or two gallon tank attached to the unit.  The biggest drawback is having to deal with another type of fuel and fumes inside your vehicle. Also, diesel tends to gel if it gets cold, so it might not be the best for a winterized rig.
• Propane heater: I use a portable Buddy Heater from Mr. Heater.  You can use it inside with very little ventilation up to altitudes of 9,000ft above sea level.  I’ve used mine a few times and heater produces reliable heat without fumes.  The drawbacks are that propane heaters cause water condensation without good ventillation. A 1lb bottle might only last five or six hours on low.  I also have a carbon monoxide detector just to be safe.
• Propane water heater: Heating water uses more electricity than nearly any other purpose on the road.  If you like your hot showers, you should probably opt for an on-demand tankless propane water heater for maximum effectiveness.
• Electric fans instead of A/C: I don’t plan on being anywhere the mercury hits the triple digits. My electric ceiling fan and a couple cracked windows has been very effective at keeping my bus in the mid-70s.  It’s also a great way to clear out smoke when I burn something I’m cooking.

Solar Power Setups for Van Life: What You Need to Know about Solar Generators

If you aren’t a fan of fossil fuels, lugging around big explosive tanks of pressurized fuel, or having to refill yet another fuel tank, you can add a solar generator to your setup.  Check out my affiliate link to Anker.com for affordable and reliable solar generator solutions for your van life needs.  

Anker solar generators use portable panels to harvest the energy of the sun and store, control, and transfer that energy into electricity for AC and DC currents.  That means not only can you charge your electronics, but also use the built in inverter to power appliances such as freezers, A/C units, or your trusty electric teakettle.  All without taxing your house batteries.

You can even charge your electric bicycle if you need to.

The biggest drawback is the space needed to carry the generator.  The panels fold up and the unit itself is only about as big as a medium sized cooler. Depending on the size of your rig, that may or may not be a problem.

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