So, I have a few different wishes that are converging.
- I have a 25 ft travel trailer that is used once a month or so about 9-10 months of the year. The rest of the time it is parked along side my house.
- Now that my wife is getting more accustomed to RV live, we have started doing more dry camping. This has led me to increase the battery storage on the RV (currently 2 golf cart batteries)
- To aid in the off-grid stay time, I'd like to add a few solar panels to keep the battery charged, and minimize messing with a portable generator.
- I also would like to install an inverter in the RV to allow some infrequent use of 110 appliances (coffee maker, microwave, etc) off the now solar maintained batteries.
So, this means I'm looking at buying:
Solar Panels
Charge Controller
Inverter
Associated mounts and cables
This looks an awful like a compete off-grid solar system, which makes sense.
So, here's the rub. MOST the year, the RV is sitting on the side of the house, connected to a 120V/30A outlet. It seems to me it might make even more sense, with all this going in at once, to instead make the system grid-interactive, which would provide the ability to sell excess solar back to the grid as the RV is parked (technically, it would just be offsetting my house loads). The first 12V grid interactive inverter I've come across is the Outback GFX1312, which looks like it will do the job quite nicely (which it should for its ample price tag), but I'm wondering what other offerings are out there.
Also, any opinions on this plan?
- I have a 25 ft travel trailer that is used once a month or so about 9-10 months of the year. The rest of the time it is parked along side my house.
- Now that my wife is getting more accustomed to RV live, we have started doing more dry camping. This has led me to increase the battery storage on the RV (currently 2 golf cart batteries)
- To aid in the off-grid stay time, I'd like to add a few solar panels to keep the battery charged, and minimize messing with a portable generator.
- I also would like to install an inverter in the RV to allow some infrequent use of 110 appliances (coffee maker, microwave, etc) off the now solar maintained batteries.
So, this means I'm looking at buying:
Solar Panels
Charge Controller
Inverter
Associated mounts and cables
This looks an awful like a compete off-grid solar system, which makes sense.
So, here's the rub. MOST the year, the RV is sitting on the side of the house, connected to a 120V/30A outlet. It seems to me it might make even more sense, with all this going in at once, to instead make the system grid-interactive, which would provide the ability to sell excess solar back to the grid as the RV is parked (technically, it would just be offsetting my house loads). The first 12V grid interactive inverter I've come across is the Outback GFX1312, which looks like it will do the job quite nicely (which it should for its ample price tag), but I'm wondering what other offerings are out there.
Also, any opinions on this plan?
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