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The short answer
Full-time in a van wants around 2,000Wh and 400W or more of solar. Weekends want about 1,000Wh and 200W. The gap between those two numbers is almost entirely Starlink and a fridge running around the clock.
Why the two numbers are so far apart
A weekend load is intermittent: lights in the evening, phones overnight, a laptop for an hour. A full-time load is continuous. A compressor fridge cycles all day, and Starlink draws steadily whether you are using it or not, which is what makes it the single largest continuous draw in most vans — larger than the fridge, because the fridge at least switches itself off.
That is also why solar input matters more than capacity once you live in the thing. A battery you cannot refill is a battery you use once. Two hundred watts tops a weekend pack back up between trips; four hundred or more is what keeps a full-time system level through a run of gray days.
Recommended setups
Van or RV, full-time
Around 2,000Wh with solar input. Covers fridge, Starlink, lights and devices with a day of buffer for bad weather.
Weekends and camping
Around 1,000Wh is plenty for a couple of nights of lights, phones, a laptop and a small cooler.
How these numbers are worked out
Capacity targets come from the same arithmetic used across this site: the load in watts, multiplied by the hours you need it, divided by 0.85 to allow for what the inverter loses turning DC into AC. Solar figures assume a realistic number of usable sun hours rather than a best-case day. Every product figure is the manufacturer’s own.
Not sure what size you need? Start here — sizing a battery in watt-hours →
Know your draw before you buy anything
Off-grid power is an arithmetic problem, not a shopping problem. Add up what you run and for how long, and the answer tells you what to buy. Guessing is how people end up with a battery that dies at 2am.
| Item | Typical draw | Per day (typical use) |
|---|---|---|
| Starlink Mini | ~40W | ~400Wh (10h) |
| Laptop | 45–65W | ~250Wh |
| 12V compressor fridge | 40–60W cycling | 300–600Wh |
| LED lighting | 5–20W | ~60Wh |
| Phone charging (2) | 10–20W | ~50Wh |
| Diesel heater | 10–30W running | ~150Wh |
A fairly typical van setup — fridge, lights, Starlink for part of the day, phones and a laptop — lands somewhere around 1,000–1,500Wh per day. That is why 2,000Wh is such a common target: roughly a day and a half of buffer.
Powering Starlink off-grid
Starlink Mini draws around 40W steadily, which is modest but relentless because it never cycles off the way a fridge does. Ten hours of use is roughly 400Wh — a meaningful share of most batteries.
Two things help. Run it only when you actually need connectivity rather than leaving it up all day, and recharge from solar during daylight so the battery is only covering evenings.
Starlink is the load people forget to budget for. It is often the single largest continuous draw in a van, larger than the fridge, because it does not cycle.
Recharging on the road
Capacity decides how many days a full battery lasts; recharging decides how long a stay can go on after that. A van has three ways to refill a station, and a full-time setup wants at least two of them.
| Source | What it delivers | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Solar | 400W × 4 sun hours × 0.75 = 1,200Wh a day | That is close to a full-time van’s 1,000–1,500Wh daily draw, which is why the figures above ask for 400W or more. With only 2 sun hours, as a northern winter can bring, the same array makes 600Wh. |
| Driving | A 12V socket is typically fused at 10–15A, so 120–180W at most (watts = volts × amps) | A slow top-up rather than a recharge. A hard-wired alternator charger moves more, but it is a separate purchase, and each station has its own limit on DC input, so check the manual for the one you own. |
| Shore power or generator | BLUETTI AC200L Portable Power Station accepts up to 2,400W of AC and BLUETTI AC180 Portable Power Station up to 1,440W | 2,048 ÷ 2,400 and 1,152 ÷ 1,440 both come to under an hour. That is a floor rather than a promise, but it is by far the fastest of the three. |
The solar figures assume 4 peak sun hours and 75% of the panel’s rating reaching the battery after angle, heat and cable losses; swap in your own location and season. Solar is also the source that fails first. Sun hours fall in winter, so a setup that roughly breaks even in summer can run a deficit by December, and a bigger battery only delays that deficit while a second source closes it. For the panel side, see how to size a solar system and how to choose a solar panel.
When 2,000Wh is not enough
The day and a half of buffer above holds up to about 1,160Wh a day (1,741 ÷ 1.5), not across the whole 1,000–1,500Wh range. Usable energy is the rated figure × 0.85, so a 2,048Wh station gives about 1,741Wh. Divide by your daily draw to see how many days a full battery lasts with no recharging at all.
| Daily draw | AC200L (2,048Wh) | Apex 300 (2,765Wh) | Elite 300 (3,014Wh) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000Wh | 1.7 days | 2.4 days | 2.6 days |
| 1,250Wh | 1.4 days | 1.9 days | 2.0 days |
| 1,500Wh | 1.2 days | 1.6 days | 1.7 days |
| 2,000Wh | 0.9 days | 1.2 days | 1.3 days |
At 1,500Wh a day the AC200L covers about 1.2 days, not 1.5. If your draw sits there or higher, there are two ways up, and they solve different problems. For more hours, the BLUETTI Elite 300 Portable Power Station is the larger battery at $1,099, against $899 for the AC200L, with the same 2,400W of output. For a single big appliance rather than longer runs, the Apex 300 Versatile Power Station raises the output to 3,840W, at $1,899. Bluetti also lists add-on batteries for the AC200L and the Apex 300, the B300K for AC200L/AC300 and the B500K for Apex 300, which is the other way to buy days.
Two worked examples. Off-grid and RV power setups → — what a full-time van build needs against a weekend one, with the capacity and solar figures.