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 grey 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.
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.