Solar Power to Go
Portable Solar Solutions will Help Provide the Juice for Your RV Adventures
Image Caption: Image Courtesy of Jackery
Unless you’ve been hibernating for the past few years, you’ve heard of using solar power in an RV. The idea of “free” energy is appealing to nearly everyone, so this is one area of RV technology that is really “lighting up.”
Maybe you’ve held off on RV solar. Maybe your RV came prewired for solar. Or maybe you even already have a solar panel up on your RV’s roof. Wherever you are on the solar-power spectrum, you may want to check out the newest round of portable solar-power solutions to see if they can enhance your RVing experience.
Image Courtesy of Zamp Solar
Why Portable?
As RVers, we’re accustomed to traveling with many of the comforts of home. Our RVs are portable themselves! So why would an RVer want to look at portable solar? There are several reasons. First, you can’t take your RV everywhere. Need to charge your laptop on the sidelines at a game? Want to run a blender while lounging on a beach? There are portable solar products that can make that happen.
On a more practical level, perhaps you’re planning to get a new RV soon. Adding a roof-mounted solar setup to your soon-to-be-former-RV doesn’t make sense in that case, but portable solar does. Or perhaps your rig is completely fine except for this one additional electrical need. Portable solar might fill that gap without running wires through the RV’s roof.
Image Courtesy of Renogy
What Makes Solar Work?
I’ve written here about solar before (“Powered by the Sun,” October 2021), and though that article talked about larger rooftop solar-power systems, the basic components of these systems all still apply to portable solar products. Portable solar products will contain some or all of the following components:
Solar Panels: These convert sunlight into an electrical charge.
Solar Charge Controller: Converts the variable output from the solar panels into something that can charge a battery or power an appliance.
Batteries: If a portable solar device needs to store energy or work when the sun isn’t shining, it will have a battery to store power.
DC Output or Inverter: Energy from the sun is nice, but you typically want to DO something with that energy. These devices will include ways to charge a battery, charge your phone, or just provide an inverter-powered outlet to plug that blender into.
If you were building a solar-power system from scratch, you would have to select and size each component of the system, and make sure they would all work together. But the great thing about portable solar is that you don’t have to do any of that! The engineering decisions for these devices have been made ahead of time, so all you have to do is set it in the sun and use it.
Image Courtesy of Nature Power
Types of Portable Solar
There’s no standard definition of what constitutes a “portable solar” product. But to keep things manageable, let’s restrict our discussion to the two more common types of devices you’ll find on the market today.
Portable Panel Kits
These kits generally consist of two components: a solar panel and a charge controller. The charge controller can be either a separate part of the kit that you plug in, or it can be so well integrated that you don’t even notice that there is one.
These don’t have a battery on board, so they’re “in the moment” devices—meaning they only provide power when the sun is shining on them. There is no storage capability, but they work in exactly the same way as a fixed-installation solar setup and charge the RV’s onboard batteries.
On one end, these can be rather small devices, like the Renogy E.FLEX 21, which, at 21 watts, is meant to power or charge one or two USB devices. At the other end, there are kits like the Zamp Solar 230-Watt Portable Kit, which could generate a significant charge for your RV’s house battery, but weighs in at more than 53 pounds. GoPower! (gpelectric.com) also offers reliable portable solar kits.
Large or small, the cool thing about kits is that you don’t need anything else to make them work. Just set them in the sun and use the power to run a device or charge a battery. If you want to run a 120-volt AC “household” appliance, these won’t do that on their own. They only provide DC current.
Power Stations and Solar Generators
These are the big boys of portable solar. They typically contain everything that a permanent RV solar installation does, but in a portable package. They’ll include solar panels (though they are sometimes sold without), a charge controller, a sizable lithium battery, and an inverter/charger so you can get regular household AC current anywhere you like.
Jackery and Goal Zero are two big names in this space. These units typically have more than one way to charge their batteries. As an example, take the Jackery Explorer 290 Portable Power Station. Besides solar panels, you can plug it into grid power to charge, and you can also plug it into your vehicle’s cigarette lighter (only do that while the engine is on!).
These devices also have multiple options for how you use the power that they store. Almost all of them will have USB charging ports. But they’ll usually contain a way to draw 12-volt DC power and 120-volt AC power as well.
Image Courtesy of Jackery
Things to Consider
Let’s say you’re interested in trying out portable solar. What are some things you need to consider when making a purchase? Most of the differences between these products come down to capacity. There are several capacities to think about; not everyone quotes them the same way, and they’re all measured in watts or watt-hours. It can get a bit confusing, so let’s break it down.
Solar Generation Capacity
Simply put, this is “How big is the solar panel?” Or if you’re considering a unit sold without a panel, it’s, “How big of a solar panel can I plug in?” This is governed by the size of the solar charge controller that’s included. Larger capacities mean more power generated and less time to recharge a battery. But remember that higher-wattage panels are also physically larger, so they may be bulky to store and transport.
Storage Capacity
For a portable panel kit, the storage capacity is zero, since they don’t come with batteries. But for solar generators, this is a key metric. A larger battery will mean more run time for whatever you plug into it, but it also means more weight and typically more cost.
The storage capacity will usually be stated in watt-hours. The Jackery 290 power station we mentioned earlier contains a 290-watt-hour battery. Watts to watt-hours is simple multiplication, so a 290-watthour battery means you could run a 290-watt load for one hour.
Image Courtesy of GoSun
Power Output Capacity
There are two types of power these devices generate, AC power and DC (battery) power. So there can be two different power output numbers to pay attention to. If you’re looking at a portable panel kit, they only generate DC power, so that’s the only output they’ll have. DC power may be quoted in watts, or it may be given as something like “12V, 10A.” Watts is simply amperage multiplied by voltage, so that’s the same as 120 watts.
AC power output is the other key metric. This is a regular household current, and in a solar generator, it’s delivered from an onboard inverter. If you want to run a toaster, a blender, or a laptop, this is the number you need to pay attention to. You need to verify that the AC power output of a solar generator is large enough to run the load.
Price
It’s an understatement to say that portable solar products can vary a lot in price. You can find solar generator units from less than $200 to more than $8,000. Portable panel kits are generally less expensive since they don’t contain batteries or inverters.
Weather Resistance
Depending on how you plan on using it, this could be an important feature. Nobody wants to scramble to pull down their solar power setup every time the weather turns! Be sure you select a unit that works for the way you intend to use it. It may be possible, for example, to leave solar panels out in the rain, and just protect the battery/inverter unit of a solar generator. If that works for you, then go for it!
Remember, solar power is a rapidly evolving field, so if the right device for you isn’t on the market today, simply check back next week!
Who Says it has to be About Electricity?
Sure, the first thing you think of when you hear “solar-powered” is probably a panel running some electronic gadget. But the sun can generate more than just electricity! Here are a couple of other interesting ways to use solar power that are perfect fits with the outdoor lifestyle.
Image Courtesy of Coghlan’s
Solar Showers
The ultimate in simplicity, solar showers are no more complicated than a dark-colored bag of water. Simply hang the bag in the sun, the water heats up, and you can wash off sand, mud, and dirt—with comfortable warm water—before it gets tracked into your RV.
Image Courtesy of GoSun
Solar Ovens
GoSun is the big name in solar ovens. Though they pack some interesting technology (parabolic reflectors, glass-walled vacuums), the principle that makes them work is very simple. Just put the ovens in the sun, point the reflectors, and you can be cooking as hot as 500°F in minutes. We’ve used one, and for those of us without ovens in our small RVs, it’s a great way to enjoy baked foods on the road!
