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Wanting to build a stand alone solar power station in Colorado for RV's

JShipley1060

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May 23, 2021
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Hello all, I'm looking at building a stand alone power station in a small shed on a vacation property in Colorado for RV's to plug into ( 1 maybe 2 no more) ... and have it like a camp ground shore power …. don't have to worry about a converter as the RVs will convert the power... So I'm looking at the all in one Inverters (MPP, Growatt etc.) but not sure whether to go with (12-24 or 48), or how may solar panels or battery's ….. now that I said all that, I have some thoughts but I think I getting more confused, defiantly over thinks this.....Thanks for any assistance
 
That is what I did. I have 50 amp RV so my only desire was to have a correct 4 prong 240v plug to attach the RV to. Therefore I used a split phase inverter. Pretty simple system.

Mppsolar LV6048
4000 watts of solar panels
4 - 48v 5.3 ah BigBatteries

I had the whole system up and running in a couple of weeks. I just plug in the RV like you do at an RV park. So far no issue running 2 Airxcel colman ACs during the day. Has not been hot enough to run at night yet. Not sure if I will overload the inverter if the stars were to align and all my stuff like both AC/Fridge and microwave hit simultaneously. My goal is to be able to run one AC overnight and have enough PV to keep one AC running and recharge the batteries. I am prepared to add 4000 more watts of solar to achieve the desired result. I am in southern utah and I am getting some fantastic solar production over 6 hours a day.

Next step for you is to do all the homework like load calculations etc... There are plenty of thread under the "how to size my system" type titles.
 
That is what I did. I have 50 amp RV so my only desire was to have a correct 4 prong 240v plug to attach the RV to. Therefore I used a split phase inverter. Pretty simple system.

Mppsolar LV6048
4000 watts of solar panels
4 - 48v 5.3 ah BigBatteries

I had the whole system up and running in a couple of weeks. I just plug in the RV like you do at an RV park. So far no issue running 2 Airxcel colman ACs during the day. Has not been hot enough to run at night yet. Not sure if I will overload the inverter if the stars were to align and all my stuff like both AC/Fridge and microwave hit simultaneously. My goal is to be able to run one AC overnight and have enough PV to keep one AC running and recharge the batteries. I am prepared to add 4000 more watts of solar to achieve the desired result. I am in southern utah and I am getting some fantastic solar production over 6 hours a day.

Next step for you is to do all the homework like load calculations etc... There are plenty of thread under the "how to size my system" type titles.
That's what I was looking for, this points me in the right direction, thank you very much....on the batteries did you run in Series or Parallel ?
 
That's what I was looking for, this points me in the right direction, thank you very much....on the batteries did you run in Series or Parallel ?

Its a 48V system, so 48v batteries can only be ran parallel in my case. I don't think there is any consumer, over the counter type inverters that would run at 96v by wiring in series.
 
Depends on how the RVs will be allowed to run. 15 amp outlet to keep the RV battery charged and run small items is easy. Two A/C running 24/7, electric water heat, absorption fridge on electric, microwave, hairdryer. All this adds up to a lot of panels and cells. 12-24 volts is probably fine for limited use. If going big I would go right to 48 volts.
 
I would like to have a system that would charge my Electric vehicle and only have it do that, not grid tied or any battery, is that possible. In an ideal situation I don't want to convert it to ac, I want to skip that step. Sorry if I missed an explanation on it somewhere else.
 
I would like to have a system that would charge my Electric vehicle and only have it do that, not grid tied or any battery, is that possible. In an ideal situation I don't want to convert it to ac, I want to skip that step. Sorry if I missed an explanation on it somewhere else.
Sure. You just need 450 to 600+ DC volts available to power your modified L3 charger at home.
 
I would like to have a system that would charge my Electric vehicle and only have it do that, not grid tied or any battery, is that possible. In an ideal situation I don't want to convert it to ac, I want to skip that step. Sorry if I missed an explanation on it somewhere
So I am an amateur, can you explain how I accomplish that?
These are all good questions worthy of their own thread, Just a lot different than the OPs intent to run a RV off a 50 amp jack.
 
Sorry if this is not appropriate, but I felt this was a no grid tie and stand alone system. This was a link that came up when I tried to post my question in a new thread.
 
That would be a good thread!

Go ahead and start a new thread. There’s at least three relatively simple approaches that would work for you. Up front you won’t be saving money(over grid $/kWh), but it would be interesting and may have long-view benefits that I’m sure will get mentioned.
 
OK, I will do that tonight when I have time. Thanks for the reply!
 
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