1. Are 100watt solar panels enough for a caravan?
The answer to this question is not fixed, to determine whether 100watt solar panel is enough for your caravan, you need to calculate how much power the 100watt solar panel can generate and how much power your caravan needs, if the power generated by the 100watt solar panel is greater than the power your caravan needs, then the 100watt solar panel will be sufficient for your caravan, otherwise the 100watt solar panel will not be able to do the job.
First of all, to calculate how much electricity 100watt solar panels can produce, you need to know the average daily peak sunshine hours in your area, the average daily peak sunshine hours are different in each area, you can calculate the average daily peak sunshine hours through the annual peak sunshine hours, the formula is:
Annual peak sunshine hours / 365 = average daily peak sunshine hours
Assuming you are located in the region of the average daily peak sunshine hours for 5 hours, then in the ideal state of 100watt solar panels can produce monthly electricity can be substituted into the following formula, namely
Solar panel output = solar panel power x average daily peak sunshine hours x 30
Substituting this formula into the above equation, we can see that a 100watt solar panel can produce 15000Wh of electricity in a month, and through the conversion formula of 1kWh=1000Wh, a 100watt solar panel can produce 15kWh of electricity in a month.
Then, you need to count the total power consumption of each power-consuming equipment in your caravan for one month. Generally speaking, the power-consuming equipment in your caravan includes refrigerators, lights, laptops and water heaters, etc., and the method of calculating the power consumption of this kind of electrical appliances is similar, take the refrigerator as an example, assuming that your refrigerator has a power consumption of 0.2kW, and your refrigerator needs to work for 8 hours a day, then you can substitute the following formula, i.e.
Monthly electricity consumption of the appliance = power consumption of the appliance x daily working hours of the appliance x 30
Substitute the data to get the monthly power consumption of your refrigerator is 48kWh, then calculate the power consumption of the equipment in your caravan one by one, and then add up the monthly power consumption, if it is higher than 15kWh, it indicates that 100watt solar panel is not enough to support all the power consuming equipment in your caravan, if it is lower than 15kW, it indicates that 100watt solar panel is enough to support all the power consuming equipment in your caravan. If it is less than 15kW, it means that 100watt solar panel is enough to support all power consuming devices in your caravan.
2. How many 100watt solar panels can power your caravan?
Firstly, you need to determine the total power consumption of all the power consuming devices in your caravan. For example, assuming that the monthly power consumption of all the power consuming devices in your caravan is 60kWh, ideally you can calculate the number of 100watt solar panels you need by following the process below.
You need to first calculate the total wattage of PV panels required, the formula is:
Total wattage of PV panels = monthly power consumption of all equipment in the caravan / peak sunshine hours per day / 30
Substituting the data, you can get the total wattage of PV panels under 5 hours of peak sunlight for 0.4kW. Then, by using the formula of conversion from kilowatt to watt: 1kW=1000W, substituting the data, you can get the total wattage of PV panels for 400W, and then you can calculate the number of 100watt solar panels you need by substituting the following formula, i.e.
Number of 100watt solar panels = total wattage of PV panels / power of a single solar panel.
Substituting the data, you can see that you need 4 pieces of 100watt solar panels to power your caravan. Of course, for different caravans, you can calculate how many 100watt solar panels you need for your caravan by using the above formula.
