Sunday, Oct 30, 2016 at 14:36
First it must be understood that the domestic 240v fridges are an inefficient high demand item with high start currents. They will consume many times what a 12/24 volt compressor fridge will.
If you are at all serious about off
grid camping these need to go.
I would expect your 1KVA generator should run them ...... but their high start currents and poor power factor may mean that it wont ... this will also be an issue if you want to run them off an inverter.
As it stands, in round figures you have around 600VA peak demand ....... because of the inefficiency of these fridges and one being a freezer I estimate your average demand to be around 300 to 400VA ...... in hot weather and particularly if you are chilling down, the freezer has to be calculated as running nearly continuously, the fridge will probably have a 50% duty cycle or worse.
If you where to reliably supply a 400VA demand on a continuous basis from solar in the northern parts of Australia you would need at lest 1200 to 1600 watts worth of solar panels and at least 3000AH of batteries if running on 12 volts.
that is calculating a 50% depth of cycle and a 48hour rain reserve.
Running similar sized 12 volt compressor fridges I estimate you would have a peak demand of less than 150VA and an average of around 100VA.
You solar requirement would become around 300 watts and you required battery capacity would be around 500AH.
get rid of the freezer all together and ya gona cut that by 2/3 again.
So unless you get rid of the domestic 240V fridges you will be running a 2KVA generator contuinuously.
When it comes to power, solar and batteries, being optomistic simply does not pay.
cheers
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