refrigerator or fridge is the most important part of our lives right now. if you have a 300W solar panel and wanna know can you run a fridge on it? so you have come to the right place.
In this blog, I’ll try to explain to you how much power you can get from a 300W solar panel and how much power a refrigerator use for 24 hours.
In short? Yes, a 300-watt solar panel can run a mini 12v fridge for about 16 hours or a full-size kitchen fridge for about 3-4 hours with the help of 750 watt pure sine wave inverter and 200Ah lead-acid battery or 100Ah Lithium battery
Now lets about the calculation of how you can measure how long you can power your fridge with any size of solar panels.
I’ll also share some tips to save electricity in a refrigerator.
How much power does a 300W solar panel produce?
On average, a 300W solar panel will produce about 240 watts of DC power per peak sun hour. So if your Location receives about 5 hours of peak sunlight 240*5 = 1200Wh
this is how much you can get from your solar panels in DC current. But the refrigerators use AC so to convert the DC into AC current we’ll have to use the inverter.
And the inverters are not 100%, most of the inverters available in the market right now are 90% efficient. This means there will be a 10% power loss when converting DC into AC. Nothing’s perfect in the solar power world.
I have discussed in detail how much power can a 300W solar panel can produce along with the DC current and AC current and the factors which play a role in power production so you get the maximum from your solar panels. Read More…
or use this calculator to convert DC into AC watts
1200*0.90 (inverter efficiency) = 1080 AC watts
So you’d get around 1.1Kw AC power output from a 300W solar panel in a day with 5 hours of peak sunlight
Related Post: Solar Panel Output Calculator
How Much Electricity Refrigerators Use?
There are many different sizes and technology of fridges o refrigerators available in the market. the old technology refrigerators consume high electricity than the newer inverter technology refrigerators.
Old technology full-sized refrigerators use more power when working at about 200W normally. and the inverter technology inverters use about 100W of power when working.
as you might know, refrigerators automatically turn off after a few times and then start again so on average a refrigerator runs for 40 minutes in one hour
here’s a chart that will explain which fridge consumes how much electricity, their surge power, and total wattage consumption for 24 hours.
| Refrigerator type | Power Consumption | Duty Cycle in an hour | Surge wattage | Total Watts (24 hrs) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Compressor 160-180 litter | 200W | 30 minutes | 700W | 2400W (2.4 kWh) |
| inverter technology 160-180 litter | 100W | 40 minutes | 300W | 1600W (1.6kWh) |
| Mini fridge 50 litter | 70W | 30 minutes | 250W | 840W (0.84 kWh) |
How Much Electricity Refrigerators Use?Duty cycle in an hour – This means for how many minutes a fridge will run in an hour.
Surge wattage – This is the amount of power the fridge consumes to start for an initial few seconds
So now we have calculated the power production of 300W solar panels in AC which was 1100W (1.1 kWh).
We are taking the AC power output because the refrigerators use AC current.
300W solar panel can run an old technology 160-180 litter-sized fridge for 11 hours with the help of batteries and inverter, 16 hours for a new technology 160-180 litter-sized fridge, and a mini-fridge for 31 hours
Video – Tips to Save Electricity in a Refrigerator
- Keep some space around the refrigerator about 6 inches from the wall
- Avoid frequently opening a fridge
- Avoid overstuffing keep only those in the fridge which need to be cooled
- Avoid keeping hot things inside the fridge
- Keep the thermostat temperature at a medium level
What Do i Need to Run My Fridge with a 300W Solar panel?
Solar panels convert the sunlight into DC (Direct current) which we store in the battery and then we convert that stored current into AC (Alternating Current) with the help of an inverter to run the household appliances or fridge.
as I have discussed how much power a fridge consumes and its surge power. surge power is the power required to start any appliances which last for a few seconds in the start.
Make sure that the surge wattage of your fridge and inverter should match. Usually, the surge wattage of an inverter is the 2x multiple of its continuous wattage
But the surge wattage of the fridge is about 3-4 times higher than its power consumption.
Still, confused about the size of an inverter to run your fridge? read the bellow article for more in-depth information
Related: What Size Inverter To Run A Fridge? (1000 Watt, 2000 Watt…?)
