Camping Power Station Calculator

It depends on the gear you bring and how many nights you are out. The method is the same as the main Power Station Size Calculator: add up each item's daily watt-hours, then add headroom for inverter conversion loss and the reserve you leave on the battery.

For a minimal tent-camping kit — a couple of LED lights, a small fan and phone charging — a day is often only 100–300 Wh, so a 300–500 Wh unit is plenty for one or two nights. Add a portable fridge or cooler and the daily total usually rises to roughly 600–1,000 Wh, which points at a 1,000 Wh power station for a weekend. Running Starlink for hours, charging camera and drone batteries, or using an electric blanket on cold nights can push a three-day trip toward the 2,000 Wh class.

This page is aimed at portable, packable camping gear for one to three nights. For a built-in RV, camper or van setup — a 12V house fridge, roof fan, water pump, fixed electronics — use the RV Power Station Calculator instead.

500 Wh delivers roughly 325–400 Wh usable after inverter loss and a reserve. It is a good match for a light kit — camp lights, a small fan, phone and camera charging, a CPAP for a night — and it is small and light enough to carry easily. It is usually not enough to run a portable fridge for a full weekend.

1,000 Wh gives around 650–800 Wh usable, generally enough for a portable fridge plus lights and device charging for one to two nights, or the smaller items alone across a longer trip. This is the most common size for weekend car camping.

2,000 Wh provides around 1,300–1,600 Wh usable. Consider it for three or more nights without recharging, for running Starlink for hours each day on top of a fridge, or for an electric blanket in cold weather. It is heavier and bulkier, which matters more for tent camping than car camping.

These are starting points. Put your real gear list and number of nights into the calculator above, and confirm the specific unit's usable capacity, continuous output and maximum charge input before buying.

A 12V portable compressor fridge or cooler is usually the largest single load on a camping trip. It typically draws 40–60 watts while the compressor runs, and it cycles on and off rather than running continuously. Over a day that often works out to roughly 400–700 Wh, though a hot car, a full fridge, or frequent lid-opening pushes it higher.

That means a 500 Wh power station might keep a small cooler going for most of a warm day, a 1,000 Wh unit for a night or two, and a 2,000 Wh unit for a long weekend — before you add lights, charging and everything else. Enter your cooler's measured average draw and equivalent compressor-on hours in the calculator above for a number specific to your setup.

The Refrigerator Power Station Calculator covers compressor cycling, duty cycle and startup surge in more detail, and the same cycling idea applies to a portable camping fridge.

Using a CPAP while camping. Without a heated humidifier a CPAP typically draws 30–60 watts, so one night is roughly 200–400 Wh — one of the least demanding loads to back up. Turning off the heated humidifier and heated tube, or running the machine on 12V DC, cuts that further. The CPAP Power Station Calculator covers humidifier and DC options.

Running Starlink at a campsite. A standard dish draws around 50–75 watts in normal use, so eight hours is roughly 400–600 Wh and a full day is closer to 1,200–1,800 Wh. That is often the difference between a 1,000 Wh and a 2,000 Wh unit. The Starlink Power Station Calculator breaks down AC versus DC power setups.

Charging phones, cameras and drones. Phones are tiny (5–15 Wh each). A mirrorless or DSLR battery charger draws roughly 20–30 watts for an hour or two per battery. A drone battery charger is heavier, often 60–100 watts, and a full set of flight batteries can add 150–400 Wh a day for a photography trip. Charging on 12V or USB-C PD where possible avoids the inverter loss of an AC charger.

Staying warm on a cold night. A heated blanket usually draws far less than heating the whole tent with a space heater — often tens of watts — because it warms the person directly, and a 12V model bypasses the inverter. A full night still adds several hundred watt-hours, and some blanket manuals bar inverter power, so check the manual and size it deliberately — the Electric Blanket Power Station Calculator covers active watts, runtime, and AC versus 12V.

The calculator totals one day of use, then multiplies by the Number of days you set. Trip length changes the answer more than any single device:

• One night. Lights, a fan, phone charging and a CPAP is a few hundred watt-hours — a 300–500 Wh unit is usually enough. Add a cooler and 500–1,000 Wh is the safer range.
• A weekend (2 nights). Set Number of days to 2. A cooler plus the small stuff commonly lands near 1,200–2,000 Wh once losses and reserve are included, so a 1,000 Wh unit with some solar, or a 2,000 Wh unit on its own, is a common choice.
• Three days or more. Without recharging, the capacity you need scales roughly with the day count and quickly reaches the 2,000 Wh class or larger. Most people pair a mid-size unit with a solar panel instead.

If your goal is backing up a house during a grid outage rather than camping, the Home Power Outage Calculator is the better fit.

On trips longer than a night or two, most campers top a power station back up with a portable solar panel rather than carry enough battery for the whole stay. A panel replaces part of what you use each day, so the battery only has to cover the evening and overnight hours and the shortfall on cloudy days.

Real solar output is well below the panel's rating once you account for weather, tree cover at a campsite, panel angle, temperature and the slow final stretch of charging, so plan for partial recharges and keep a reserve as a buffer. The Solar Charge Time Calculator estimates how long a given panel takes to refill a unit, and the Solar Panel Size Calculator works out how many watts of panel you need to keep pace over a set number of camping days.

This calculator sizes energy capacity in watt-hours. It does not check whether a power station can physically start or sustain a given appliance. Battery capacity (watt-hours) and a power station's inverter rating (continuous watts, plus a short surge rating) are separate specifications, and high-draw camp gear is limited by the second one.

For an electric kettle, camping coffee maker, induction cooktop, portable heater or a 12V-to-AC microwave, always check two things on the power station before relying on it:

For a coffee maker specifically, the Coffee Maker Power Station Calculator sizes it on its own from the machine's input watts, the Electric Kettle Power Station Calculator does the same for a camp kettle, the Hair Dryer Power Station Calculator covers a hair dryer, the Air Fryer Power Station Calculator covers a camp air fryer, the Induction Cooktop Power Station Calculator covers a camp induction burner, the Toaster Oven Power Station Calculator covers a camp toaster oven, and the Rice Cooker Power Station Calculator covers a camp rice cooker, and the Slow Cooker Power Station Calculator covers a low-wattage slow cooker, where the all-day runtime rather than the watts sizes the battery.

• Continuous AC output. A 1,000 W kettle needs an inverter rated for at least that much continuous power, no matter how large the battery is. Many small or ultralight units stop well short of that.
• Startup / surge rating. Motor and heating gear can briefly pull more than their running watts. The unit's surge rating has to cover that spike.

Because a reliable surge result depends on the exact appliance and power station, this page deliberately does not calculate one. Treat kettles, cookers and heaters as short-burst loads, read both the appliance label and the power station spec sheet, and confirm compatibility with the manufacturer before you depend on it in the field. Planning to run a portable air conditioner at camp? The Air Conditioner Power Station Calculator covers its battery, output, and voltage requirements, the Microwave Power Station Calculator covers a camp microwave's input-watt and continuous-output needs, and the Electric Heater Power Station Calculator shows how quickly a heater empties a battery.