Collecting Clean Energy
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Plug and Play Solar Power right out of the box
Collecting clean energy from the Sun is a great way to activate your Solarpunk Lifestyle.
We started with The Renogy 200-Watt 12-volt Monocrystalline Foldable Solar Suitcase and have been using it for about a month now. This thing is really cool! We highly recommend it for anyone wanting to join the Solar Power Revolution and embark on their own adventure into becoming more self-sustained.
This Solar Suitcase was plug-and-play right out of the box! It was so easy to hook it up to the house batteries in our Toy-Hauler that it took less than 10 minutes to be up and running. Renogy makes sure it comes with everything you need to immediately start charging up your batteries with sunshine: two 100-watt Solar Panels, a 20-amp charge controller, cables, and clamps. Brilliant!
Battery bank for The Wanderer: Two 6-volt Interstate Deep-cycle Batteries wired in series
The battery bank of our RV currently provides the power supply for all of the following aboard The Starship Wanderer: lights, electronic ignition for our on-demand Water Heater, the digital display and control panel for our RV Refrigerator, both exhaust fans, and the water pump. This is all now being powered through our Renogy Solar Suitcase directly!
On sunny days, our Renogy Solar Suitcase pulls in 14.7 volts consistently and, even on cloudy days, it performs well, pulling in an impressive 13.3 volts! That’s really great!
This Renogy Solar Suitcase can really withstand the elements! It has been rainy and stormy here in Oregon all of January. Our winter storms often come with heavy rains and high winds. This little unit stood up to the wind, rain, ice, and snow set up right on the ground outside The Starship Wanderer. This thing is really rugged!
By the way, the zip-up case that Renogy made for this Solar Panel Kit is outstanding! We love the utility and the mobility that makes this unit so adaptable and fun to use!
Our end goal is to be able to produce as much of our own energy as possible. But for now, any amount that we can generate ourselves is good because it’s better for the Planet, and it increases our resiliency.
In the process of implementing this Solar Suitcase by Renogy, we have become more aware of our energy usage. It has helped us pinpoint where we can most effectively increase our energy efficiency. We quickly realized that the old incandescent lightbulbs in our RV were sucking up way too much power.
Replacing the old incandescent lightbulbs with LEDs made a huge difference and has significantly decreased our energy usage. In the next blog, we will talk about our experience making the switch from incandescent light bulbs to LED.
We are really happy we got this Portable Solar Suitcase and highly recommend checking it out! This is a great place to start if you want to begin harnessing the power of the Sun and become more self-sufficient.
