Power supply query for van conversion with fri running12v

[sciac2001]

I have just taken delivery of a van conversion whose (small) fridge runs exclusively from the leisure battery. This method of running a fridge is new to me and I need to make sure that any systems that I add to it on board can easily cope with the power draw.
I have a 150ah leisure battery and plan to fit a solar panel system to cope. I don’t think that my van will cope with an additional battery and so my solar panel system must do. I don’t think that a single big panel, will fit onto my roof once I fit an awning but at the same time would imagine that I need at least 150w. What to do?
(I tend to spend most of my time in southern Europe when the end of summer comes and so on most days, I can count on brighter conditions than when here.)
Any advice or guidance would be greatly appreciated.
(The van is a La Strada Regent S.)
Many thanks in advance

 

[autorouter]

With a 150Ah battery, you will have a maximum of 75Ah of charge to run the fridge. Ideally you should ensure that 75Ah is enough to power the fridge between top-ups from the solar panels. That should be plenty to run overnight between sunset and sunrise on a summer day.

The solar system needs to be large enough to run the fridge and have plenty left over to refill the battery ready for overnight. From previous threads it seems to me that you'll need about 250 watts of panel, so 150 watts will struggle, I think. It's the total area that matters, so maybe three or four smaller panels will do the job.

Solar is an extremely variable quantity, from summer in Morocco to winter in Norway, so you'll never have enough for all situations, but I'd think about putting as much panel as you can on the roof, and maybe fit a B2B to charge the battery by driving if the weather is consistently bad.

 

[andy63]

I had a camper with a 65l compressor fridge... I fitted a 100w panel before a trip to Spain and Portugal and that kept my two leisure batteries topped.. but I suppose that will depend on whatever else you may intend running.. my fridge when running would draw about 3.5 amps...
Andy