RV Power Station Calculator

It depends on which appliances you run and for how long each day. The method is the same as the main Power Station Size Calculator: add up each device's daily watt-hours, then add headroom for inverter conversion loss and the reserve you leave on the battery.

A light setup — LED lights, a roof vent fan, phone charging and a laptop — often totals only 300–600 Wh a day, so a 500 Wh to 1,000 Wh unit can cover a day. Add a 12V compressor fridge and the daily total usually climbs to roughly 1,000–1,800 Wh, which points at a 1,500 Wh or larger power station for a full day of dry camping. Run Starlink all day, or add several devices at once, and a 2,000 Wh or larger unit is more realistic.

For multi-day trips you either scale the capacity up with the day count or plan to recharge from solar or the vehicle alternator. If your main concern is riding out grid failures at home rather than dry camping, the Home Power Outage Calculator covers that case, and for tent or car camping with packable gear rather than a built-in setup, see the Camping Power Station Calculator.

1,000 Wh delivers roughly 650–800 Wh usable after inverter loss and a reserve. That suits lights, a fan, phone and laptop charging, a CPAP overnight, and a small 12V fridge for part of a day. It is a common choice for weekenders who also have solar, and it stays light enough to move around easily.

2,000 Wh gives around 1,300–1,600 Wh usable, generally enough for a 12V fridge plus the small essentials for a full day of dry camping, or the essentials alone across a two to three day trip. Many units in this class also have higher continuous AC output, which helps with occasional larger loads.

3,000 Wh and larger, often with expandable batteries, is for running Starlink all day alongside a fridge and other electronics, longer stays between recharges, or heavier occasional AC use. The trade-off is weight, bulk and cost.

These are starting points. Put your real appliance list and trip length into the calculator above, and always confirm the specific unit's usable capacity, continuous output and maximum charge input.

RV refrigerator power consumption. A 12V compressor fridge or cooler typically draws 40–60 watts while the compressor runs, and it cycles on and off. Over a day that often works out to roughly 400–800 Wh, though a hot afternoon or a full fridge raises it. Absorption (three-way) fridges running on electric are far less efficient and are usually left on propane when off-grid. The Refrigerator Power Station Calculator goes into compressor cycling and startup surge in more detail.

Running Starlink from a portable power station. Yes, this is common in RVs. A standard dish draws around 50–75 watts in normal use, so eight hours is roughly 400–600 Wh and a full 24 hours is closer to 1,200–1,800 Wh. The Starlink Power Station Calculator breaks down AC versus DC power setups.

Running a CPAP in an RV. Also common. Without a heated humidifier a CPAP draws about 30–60 watts, so a night is roughly 200–400 Wh — one of the cheaper loads to back up. Turning off the heated humidifier and heated tube, or running the machine on 12V DC, cuts that further. See the CPAP Power Station Calculator for humidifier and DC details.

Heating the bed on a cold night. An electric blanket usually draws far less than heating the whole rig with a space heater, because it warms the person and bedding directly — often tens of watts — and a 12V version bypasses the inverter. A full night is still a few hundred watt-hours off the house bank, and some blanket manuals do not allow inverter power, so check the manual and plan it against your capacity — the Electric Blanket Power Station Calculator sizes the overnight load.

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 appliances are limited by the second one.

For an RV air conditioner, microwave, electric kettle, hair dryer, induction cooktop, toaster or coffee maker, always check two things on the power station before relying on it:

The Coffee Maker Power Station Calculator covers an RV coffee maker on its own, from its electrical input watts, the Electric Kettle Power Station Calculator does the same for an RV kettle, the Hair Dryer Power Station Calculator covers an RV hair dryer, the Air Fryer Power Station Calculator covers an RV air fryer, the Induction Cooktop Power Station Calculator covers an RV induction cooktop, the Toaster Oven Power Station Calculator covers an RV toaster oven, and the Rice Cooker Power Station Calculator covers an RV rice cooker, and the Slow Cooker Power Station Calculator covers an RV slow cooker, where the long runtime rather than the wattage sizes the battery.

• Continuous AC output. A 1,000 W coffee maker needs an inverter rated for at least that much continuous power, regardless of how large the battery is.
• Startup / surge rating. Motor and compressor loads such as an RV air conditioner briefly pull several times 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 high-wattage appliances 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. For an RV or portable air conditioner specifically, the Air Conditioner Power Station Calculator sizes battery capacity and reports the continuous and surge output it needs, the Microwave Power Station Calculator does the same for an RV microwave from its electrical input watts, and the Electric Heater Power Station Calculator covers an electric heater's watts and how fast it drains a battery.

On trips longer than a day, most people top a power station back up rather than carry enough battery for the whole stay. A portable or roof-mounted solar panel replaces some of what you use each day, so the battery only has to cover the overnight hours and the gap on cloudy days.

Real solar output is well below the panel's rating once you account for weather, shade, panel angle, temperature and the final slow 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 days of camping.