Solar RV Panels

My wife and I quit our jobs and decided to buy an RV (fifth wheel) and travel across the country. Our plan was to stay off the beaten path whenever possible. We did not want to pay to stay at expensive and crowded RV parks. Since we were traveling with Tess and Rockette, our two Rottweilers, most RV parks would not accept us anyway (supposedly for insurance/liability reasons). We wanted the freedom to pull over and camp anywhere without giving up the amenities we were accustomed to. Additionally, my wife was teaching Online and needed to access her classes on a daily basis. Therefore, we required a reliable supply of power for her laptop and the Internet satellite dish she relied upon. The solution; Solar RV panels, a properly sized battery bank and an inverter. This site is the culmination of what I learned and documents my install for others to learn from.  

Solar Panels Mounted on the Roof of My RV.

I have broken this site up into four main sections. If you plan to install solar panels it is imperative that you read and take into consideration the three most important sections, “Solar RV Panels“, “All About Batteries” and “Estimating Power Consumption and Sizing Your RV Battery Bank“.  The fourth section, “Installing an Inverter in Your RV” is not required, however, if you plan to use the solar power you have captured and stored for your AC appliances, then you are going to need some way to convert the DC battery bank power to AC.  Therefore, an inverter becomes a critical part of the install. 

I hope you enjoy reading these articles and find them helpful as you plan for your install.  Good luck

Next: Why I Chose Solar RV Panels

Why install solar panels? Why not just run the generator that came with the RV? Following are the reasons that I chose solar panels:

• Solar is green, better for the environment and lowers our carbon footprint on this earth.
• Solar panels do not pump noxious fumes into our campsite.
• Solar panels are silent.  They do not add noise pollution to the pristine environments we like to camp in.
• Solar power is free (once you have recouped the cost of the panels).
• Solar panels keep our batteries charged whether I am there or not (IE: when the RV is in storage).
• Installing solar panels was a fun and exciting project to tackle.

These are some of the many reasons I decided on solar panels for our RV.

When I first considered installing solar panels I thought it was going to be a difficult task. After all, I knew little or nothing about solar panels and I had never installed them before. Similarly, I am not an electrician by trade and I had a ton of questions about the “how’s” of installing solar panels. The truth is, out of all the upgrades that we performed on our RV, this was one of the easiest and most straight forward. The toughest part of the whole installation was deciding what solar panels and solar charger to purchase and figuring out how many solar panels we would need in order to keep our batteries charged.   

Solar panels are not cheap; however, if you are a true RVer and you plan to travel often, then solar panels are a must.  The solar panels that we installed on our RV are simply put – AWESOME.  They keep our batteries fully charged at all times and we rarely have to use our generator unless we need to use the AC or microwave.  Additionally, when we have our RV in storage we never need to worry about the batteries dying or discharging over time because they are constantly being charged and maintained by a quality three stage charger using free energy from the sun. 

If you have read this far then you have probably already decided that solar panels are what you need for your RV. Now you just need to know how to install them. WAIT! There are a lot of important considerations to take into account before buying solar panels and bolting them to your RV – so let’s gets to it…

Next: Determining How Many Solar Panels You Will Need For Your RV - Getting Started  |  Home