If you’re working while living on the road, you know that electricity is essential to keep your devices charged. Even if you’re just enjoying a quiet weekend in the woods, it’s nice to be able to have access to power without having to run a noisy generator. The answer? Solar power. Putting a campervan solar system into play can seem intimidating and costly but at the end of the day, it’s a worthy one-time investment.

Take, for example, our routine when we first started out. Working long days Tuesday-Thursday meant that we had to pay for a campsite or RV Park in order to plug-in. Sure, you can camp out at coffee shops and other places with wifi, but that only really works when you’re around a city.

This meant that we were essentially paying over $100/week as our “power bill.” This got old real quick and defeated the purpose of us moving out of our apartment to get away from the bills in the first place. So we spent a while researching which components would work best for us and got the wheels turning on our van life solar system.

FULL DISCLOSURE: We are not electricians by any stretch. We had enough research and experience in our holsters to put an electrical system into place that works great and cuts our costs down immensely.    

Solar Panels

For our system, we are using a 150 watt monocrystalline solar panel from Renogy (**we added a second one later on so the wiring diagram shows the two solar panels. See updates below). In a nutshell, polycrystalline is cheaper but monocrystalline is more efficient.

We opted for this one mainly because it’s square so it fits nicely within our roof rack. The best solar panels are those that satisfy your power and space requirements. Also, rigid solar panels are generally more durable than flexible solar panels. We’d advise to only use a flexible solar panel if you absolutely need to. Learn more about the differences here.

We’re fairly light power users so 150 watts is sufficient for us, but take some time to pay attention to how much power you actually consume in a day. Take note of the wattage rating on your appliances too—you’d be surprised how much power some small appliances take. Use resources like Renogy’s calculator to help figure out how many solar panels you need. Getting the right solar panel array is a key component of your campervan solar system.

Wiring Solar Panels

Installing solar panels is a lot easier than you may think! The solar panel is hooked up using two MC4 connectors (wtf are those?! read this). These join the positive and the negative 10 AWG wires that come already attached to the solar panel to the positive and negative 10 AWG wires that feed inside.

Home Depot has a handy guide for understanding wire thickness, or read more in-depth about it here.

As mentioned, we already had a roof rack so we just ran two sturdy metal beams across and used z-brackets to secure it on. Depending on what your roof’s shaped like, you can easily mount the z-brackets directly onto the roof as well. We drilled two holes in the corner of the roof and sealed on a little cable hub, called an entry gland, to feed the wires through while keeping it water-tight.

On the positive wire, we’ve used a 15 amp breaker but you can also use a standard fuse. The breakers are a little more expensive upfront but never need to be replaced. 

Charge Controller

The positive wire then attaches to our solar charge controller, which is a CTEK D250S Dual. This box is an MPPT charge controller that allows the battery to be charged by the solar panels and by the alternator while we’re driving—great on overcast days. CTEK is a Swedish company that makes some badass battery chargers for all kinds of different uses.

The negative wire is also attached to the negative terminal on the box. You can definitely opt for a much simpler and cheaper solar charge controller if you don’t plan to incorporate your alternator. That said, solar charge controllers are integral to a well-operating solar power system so be sure to still get something good quality. 

Side note: When we bought the van, we already had a 12V lead acid marine battery in the back that had a wire running directly from the alternator that would charge while we were driving. We didn’t want to cut this power source off so that’s when we discovered the CTEK solar charge controller. You could also install a DC to DC charger. 

Batteries

Next, a thicker 4 AWG positive wire runs from the CTEK charge controller to the positive battery terminal of the house battery. We’ve added a 20A breaker in between. A 4 AWG negative wire runs from the negative terminal of the CTEK charge controller to the negative battery terminal of the house battery.

We’re using the single 12V lead acid marine battery we already had but will eventually upgrade to two 6V batteries. When using multiple batteries, understand series and parallel wiring.

Your battery will probably be the most expensive component of your camper van solar setup so picking the right battery is essential. Determining how much battery capacity you need is based on how much power you’ll go through between full charges. To prolong the life of your batteries, you never want your battery bank to dip below 50%. So, it’s best to overestimate your solar energy needs to have extra power instead of scraping by.

The CTEK box is also equipped with a temperature sensor that sits on top of the battery to maintain an optimal charge.

Inverter

The house battery feeds a couple of different things. First, a separate positive and negative 4 AWG wire runs from the battery to the 1000w pure sine wave inverter, also from Renogy. This is probably the most important area to study before you buy. Understanding the amount of power that your household items use when they first start up versus when they’ve been on for a few minutes is key.

Take some time to understand surge power and sine waves to figure out how hefty of an inverter you’ll need. With a 150A breaker on the positive wire, the inverter converts the DC power coming off the battery into the AC power required for household appliances. You can plug stuff in directly to the inverter or run an extension cord, like we did. When shopping for inverters, read lots of customer reviews because the fan in many cheaper inverters can be incredibly noisy. It’s not an area you want to cheap out on.

Fuses

Next, a 10 AWG positive wire with a 30A breaker runs to our fuse box, where the fuses for all of our DC-powered appliances live. For us, that’s the fridge, lights, and furnace. Again, this was part of our existing rudimentary system when the alternator was hooked up directly to the house battery so that’s why the fuses are the old school glass ones. We recommend a fuse box like this as the hub of your electrical system.

Grounding

Also, there’s a negative 10 AWG wire running from the negative terminal of the house battery to an earthing point to ground the circuit. In our van, this is a big metal bolt that goes into the van’s body. Be sure to choose an unpainted area for grounding.

Alternator Tie-In

On the final mount of the CTEK charge controller, a positive 10 AWG wire runs all the way to the alternator and starting battery in the front. Here, we’ve put a killswitch in between if we ever want to cut the power from the alternator and rely solely on the solar panels. And of course, there is the existing negative 10 AWG wire grounding the starting battery as well.

Battery Monitor

Finally, the battery also has thin 22 AWG positive and negative wires running to a battery capacity monitor that allow us to see the charge percentage and how many volts it’s getting. Like we said above, you want to avoid letting your battery bank dip below 50% at all costs.

SO HOW MUCH DOES A VAN SOLAR SYSTEM COST?

Renogy 150W Monocrystalline Solar Panel* – we paid $200 *Boo, Renogy no longer makes this solar panel but this is basically the same one

Renogy 1000W Pure Sine Wave Inverter – we paid $180 BUT we bought ours refurbished directly from Renogy. A new one will set you back $270

CTEK D250S Dual (MPPT charge controller) – we paid $283

Battery – “free” because we already had one but expect to pay $300-500. This is the one we’re lusting over. **New battery update below

Wiring – we paid $70 (we bought the linked product from Amazon and got the rest bulk at Home Depot)

Breakers – we paid for 4 @ $13 each = $52. Using regular fuses would definitely cost less but always have a few extra on hand.

Killswitch – we paid $14

Metal beams for mounting + hardware – we paid $32 (you’ll have to go to the hardware store for these)

Mounting Z-Brackets – we paid $10

Rooftop Double Cable Entry Gland with Sealant – we paid $20

Battery Monitor – we paid $15

Cable Organization (wall mounts to keep the wiring tidy) – we paid $7

Grand total: $883
*Note that this pricing is all in US dollars because we purchased everything in the US of A. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

We broke even in 6 weeks not having to pay for RV Parks. We now have so much more freedom to work from wherever we want to and not have to worry about reservations and fees thanks to solar energy!

Taking the time to thoroughly research which components fit your needs and budget is well worth it. Hopefully this helps anyone looking to add a solar system to your camper van or RV…it’s not as scary as it may seem!

Download our visual van solar system guide for a single solar panel here. Download the full-size version with two solar panels here.

Feel free to shoot us a message or leave a comment below if you have any further questions or need clarification on anything. This post is jam-packed with helpful links so click away!!

*DECEMBER 2018 UPDATE: NEW BATTERIES!

We finally bit the bullet and upgraded our battery bank! I wish we could say the whole thing still cost under $1000 but sadly, that is not true. Batteries ain’t cheap but they’re arguably the most important components to your solar setup (other than the solar panels, of course). After careful consideration, we opted for two 6V Trojan T-105 AGM batteries. Trojan batteries are the crème-de-la-crème and are a worthy investment if you depend on your battery bank as much as we do since we boondock 100% of the time. So why these particular ones?

Delaying our battery purchase allowed us plenty of time for research. We found that 6V batteries are said to discharge slightly slower than 12Vs. By having two 6V batteries connected in series, we’d have the correct voltage we need for our system (12V) while still maintaining the same capacity (217 AH).

Alternatively, we could have kept our existing set-up by opting for one single 12V battery or upgrading to two 12V batteries connected in parallel to double our capacity (i.e. 100 AH + 100 AH = 200 AH) while still maintaining the correct voltage.

Trojan’s Reliant line of AGM batteries are sealed and maintenance-free, meaning that we’re safe to keep them on their side without risking spillage as you would in a regular flooded battery. Finally, these AGM (Absorbed Glass Mat) batteries perform well in colder temperatures, unlike gel batteries which were our other option.

Here is a diagram of how our new battery bank is hooked up:

So far, we’re noticing a huge difference in battery life. With it being winter, this has been incredibly helpful in allowing us to run the furnace longer and use the lights since it sadly gets dark before 5PM. Even without much direct sunlight, our solar array is generating enough solar energy to stay in one spot for a couple of days.

If all this battery jargon is still a bit confusing, check out Trojan’s guide on where to get started when choosing the best battery for your needs. We bought our batteries at a battery store in Vancouver because we didn’t have an address to ship them to but they are available on Amazon as well.

So what’s our grand total at now?

We paid $884 CAD (including core charge + 12% BC tax) which is about $660 USD. This brings our grand total to $1543 USD. If you’re in America and can buy them on Amazon, it’ll set you back $476 for two, amounting to $1359 USD total.

*JUNE 2019 UPDATE: ADDING A SECOND MONOCRYSTALLINE SOLAR PANEL FOR MORE SOLAR POWER!

After a very grey winter on Vancouver Island, we decided to add an additional 150w solar panel to the roof to maximize every bit of sun we get on overcast days. The wiring is super simple: the solar panels are connected in parallel, which gives us more amperage at the same voltage.

Once you have a second panel, all you need is a pair of MC4 branch connectors and some more 10 AWG solar wire with an MC4 connector on each end. You simply connect the positive wires from each solar panel into the female side of the positive branch connector and the negative wires from each solar panel into the male side of the negative branch connector. All of the van solar panels wires are now coming out of two central MC4 connectors.

Run the positive branch connector’s wire to the positive terminal of the battery and the negative branch connector’s wire to the negative terminal of the battery. That’s it!

Check out the wiring diagram below:

Unfortunately, Renogy doesn’t make their 150w panel anymore so we bought this Dokio panel from Amazon that ended up being virtually the same. We paid $144. The MC4 branch connectors were a whopping $7 and 10ft of MC4-clad solar wire set us back 20 bucks. With an additional set of mounting brackets at $9, this second solar panel addition cost us $180 USD.

This brings our grand total to $1,723 USD but it would only be $1,539 if we could have purchased the batteries in the States.

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Our mission now was to reach Largo, just a short drive from St. Petersburg, to recharge a bit at Justin’s parents’ snowbird condo. One thing we’ve learned along the way is that we seem to get along quite well with retired people – they’re finally doing what they want to do after years of slaving away at work and we’re also doing what we want to do, just without being retired. Now that we had reached the Gulf side of Florida, we had some time to kill one afternoon and decided to see what Siesta Key was all about. A word to the wise, don’t bother going at mid-day and expect to find a parking spot. In true Florida February fashion, the place was PACKED. I still have to keep reminding myself that this is high season here – actually, the congested roads and closed off parking lots do a pretty good job at it. We’ve got snowbirds, vacationing families and partying spring breakers all being sucked in by the Florida sunshine’s magnetism. Us included, of course.

Anyway, after observing “America’s #1 Beach” from the windows of the van, we stopped alongside a drawbridge to make some lunch and enjoy the seaside views. In this case, that meant big yachts and even bigger mansions. This side of town was a little calmer and was lined with happy families spending the afternoon collecting cast nets full of fish. There’s a park area on either side of the bridge and I’ve heard of people boondocking on the western side in Nora Patterson Park – a good spot to keep in mind if you’re ever in the Sarasota area. When we were ready to go, surprise surprise, the van wouldn’t start. We did our tried and true “wait it out” method and she still wasn’t turning over, even a half hour later. As always, we met lots of friendly people while waiting who helped distract us and offered tips for places to check out all over the country. There definitely is a silver lining to our constant starting struggles since whenever we’re in a parking lot with the hood up, some wonderful humans come by to try and help or just chat. We’ve been blown away by the responsiveness and hospitality of some of the folks we’ve met and for that, will be forever grateful. In this case, we were exceptionally grateful when Clementine finally fired up about an hour later.

We spent the night at the Green Swamp Wilderness Preserve and finally enjoyed some quiet, secluded “wild camping” in Florida. Similar to the DuPuis WMA we visited a couple weeks prior, you can make a free reservation on the Florida Water Management website and small campers like ours can use the equestrian designated campsites or any other non-backcountry primitive camping zones for up to 7 days. We stayed at the Ashley campground on Green Swamp’s West Tract mainly because it was one of the only ones not full or not closed for a hunt. Even though these WMAs are similar to BLMs, they require a lot more planning which makes me miss the west coast. In any case, this is a great spot with picnic tables, fire rings and even orange trees scattered around. Sadly all of the edible looking oranges were out of reach but I’m sure they’d be tasty if you had a ladder. And good enough balance that you wouldn’t fall off of it with the gazillion bugs flying around.

Arriving at the condo meant having air conditioning, wifi & TV and showering every day just because we could. As much as we love our little home on wheels, we can’t deny that the modern conveniences of a house are quite nice. We also realize that we’ve come to appreciate these little things a lot more – before, we thought it was just “normal” to have a flushing toilet and running water, pft what snobs! Because we’d be staying in one spot for two weeks, we were able to save on all of our expenses that weren’t food so we thought it would be a good time to take the plunge and invest in a solar system. We already had a deep cycle marine battery that our DC appliances ran off of (fridge, lights, etc.) that was just getting its charge from the alternator as we drove. The battery is old and has been drained many times (which is a no-no for AGM and other lead-acid batteries) so we really wanted to make sure it could keep a charge when we weren’t driving until we can afford to buy a new one. I’m going to make an in-depth post about our solar setup soon so stay tuned for that. We did a lot of research before committing to anything because it is a little pricey but according to our calculations, we’ll break even in 6 weeks since we won’t have to stay at RV Parks anymore for shore power while we’re working. That was our ultimate goal so we’re super pumped to start saving money and are eager to share some awesome products we found and hopefully make the solar installation a little less intimidating.

Our other order of business was finally getting our starting issue sorted out once and for all. We’ve had several people look at it and they all stand perplexed stating that there is nothing wrong. As we suspected, it would be a bit of (expensive) trial and error replacing things one at a time and hoping that we fixed it. We had already replaced the battery, the alternator and a few other potential culprits but it seemed to be happening more than ever. We found a great shop in Pinellas Park and decided to replace the starter. After removing the centre console covering the engine in the cab area, he also said we needed a tune-up ASAP. Turns out that our spark plugs were originals (from 1984…) and he was more shocked that we were ever able to get it started than he was by our original issue. It’s possible that the new spark plugs might have done the trick but we figured we might as well just do the starter too to hopefully prevent it from happening again. Little by little, Clemmie’s getting a lot of shiny new parts under her hood! We are so pleased with how quickly she fires up now and feel pretty confident that we can start to be normal people who can turn their car off multiple times a day. Before, we would strategically plan errands to avoid turning the van off in fear that it wouldn’t start – this upgrade should definitely help with our fuel costs.

Relaxing and getting a chance to spend time with family was great BUT we were anxious to hit the road again. As lovely of a view as we had, having a cool new one every morning is unquestionably better. We boogied back northeast, boondocked a night in Orlando and decided to visit America’s oldest city, St. Augustine. Following Ponce de Léon’s quest, we were in search of the mythical – or not so mythical – Fountain of Youth. I think our journey was a little easier with all the road signs and all, but that’s neither here nor there. They’ve basically turned this zone where the longest continuously inhabited settlement is into an archaeological park centred around a stream of magnesium-heavy water that claims some Tuck Everlasting-like effects. Truthfully, it tasted the way my water bottle does when it’s been sitting too long but who am I to judge. Around the rest of the park, there are blacksmiths clankin’ away, presentations on weaponry & canons and peacocks showing off how beautiful they are. Not sure if it was period consistent but we also had a bite at the BBQ joint at the end of the park and it was way tastier than we would have expected.

From there we cruised through Jacksonville Beach and are finally back to crossing state lines and checking out some new scenery. Next stop, Georgia!