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by rustyboy 1483 days ago
I've worked remote for 2 years in an travel trailer with a 250w solar panel and 200kwh battery and have never needed shore power. I use my phone for hotspotting and use a mac book, they both charge in about 2 hours so I run for 2-3 hours, charge it, run 2-3 hours, and then charge it before logging off.

That said, yea - no second monitor, I close a lot of apps when i'm not using them (looking at you docker and chrome), and have a setup where I ssh onto a machine or use ci-cd agents to do a lot of my work.

edit: that said, this is a lot easier in sunnier places (you don't need to use electricity for heat) which I tend to prefer. I got close to needing a campground after a week or two in WY/MT near winter.

1 comments

Do you have a typo in that "200kwh battery"? There's no way you have that much capacity.
You CAN have that much capacity, but you would basically have to build the RV out of battery cells. I'm assuming they meant 20kwh, which is still HUGE for an RV, but they did say they never needed shore power in the last 2 years of living, so I guess, its possible.
With the kind of draws described, I believe OP got the terms confused and meant "200ah". We've got a 200ah house battery in our RV, and you can run low-load stuff like a laptop and a monitor for a long time on that battery. Hell, fire up the 1100W microwave and heat some lunch. Just do it early so that the solar panels can refill before dark.
And of course 200 Ah (@12VDC) is 2.4 kWh. BTW, I have a couple of these LiFePo 100Ah batteries, and they are great. But I do get a kick out of how the capital cost is about $800 USD to store 1 kWh, or $0.15 worth of electricity (omitting solar cell cost solar charge controller cost, which are comparatively minor)! Still, the grid independence (for sustainable Tiny Electrical Living) is a wonderful thing.