Going Solar…
This is something that I didn’t really think too much into until I started travelling around Europe. Last week in a Facebook group someone wrote along the lines of – it cost him £500 to install his solar setup on his van, and after he did some calculations his solar setup in 3 months made him roughly £6 and was it worth it and would he get a return for his money.
Now don’t get me wrong it doesn’t sound a lot but compare that to the electric you would have used at home and paying an electricity company for the same amount of energy, or paying for electric on campsites and the money it costs to stay on the sites. In my previous Blog about utility bills vs vanlife energy, I do cover this.
I’m “converted” to solar power now and when I return home I’ll be setting my house and UK living van on solar and my gas on LPG. Few reasons why:
- Saves a lot of money in the long run.
- Saves time trying to find somewhere like a campsite to hook up.
- Saves money paying for these campsites to hook up.
- Helps saves the planet and sources as the sun will always be there in my lifetime.
- From just one solar panel I’m able to charge everything I need like my laptop, phone, and run my fridge.
My advice from experience is trying not to scrimp on a solar system set up. The photo above shows the solar charger, inverter and leisure batteries I bought at the beginning. Since this photo was taken I’ve changed all three for better quality ones.
This is what I have now alongside my 175W Solar Panel:
2 x T125 6V Powerline Trojan Deep Cycle Battery 240Ah (£260 delivered)
500W Pure Sine Wave Inverter (£59.99) – enough for what I need.
Epever MPPT Solar Charger 10A – (£70 delivered)
If you think about how many things use electricity in the home that we use daily and think about the things we “need” electricity for. Now take away the things you “need” electricity and what do you have left? (My answer: Television) I haven’t watched TV for 4 months and haven’t missed it one bit. If I need a movie fix I watch these on my laptop or Ipad, both I charge using solar.
When I entered Greece I drove past a massive coal power plant and one of the four cooling towers it had “GO SOLAR” painting on the side. Two thoughts came to mind
1. Totally agree with this sign.
2. How the hell did they paint that on the side of the cooling tower?
My point being, in the future we all will finally go solar, so why pay another company a service for something we can provide ourselves and save a lot of money in the long run……and go travelling with the money saved and see the world.
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