Off-grid, RV & cabin, 65 tools
Solar sizing for life off the grid
RVs, vans, boats, cabins, and remote homes all run on a different set of rules than a grid-tied roof. These tools size your panels, battery bank, and inverter around what you actually run and where you park or build.
Start here
The tool most people run first
Core off-grid sizing
Size the whole system, piece by piece
RVs and vehicles
Size a system that travels with you
Marine and water
Boats and on-water systems
Cabins and tiny homes
Size around how often you're actually there
Specific loads and appliances
Size around one piece of equipment
Generators and hybrid backup
Pair solar with a generator or shore power
Cost comparisons
Weigh off-grid against the alternative
Climate and location
Adjust for where you'll actually park or build
Sizing a system that has to stand alone
Batteries decide whether off-grid works
Panels are the easy part. The battery bank has to carry you through cloudy stretches, and the battery count vs autonomy tool converts your daily load and the days of autonomy you want into a battery count.
Check your real sun hours first
A cabin in northern Ontario does not get the same sun as an RV parked in Arizona, and guessing wrong means a system that falls short in winter. NREL's PVWatts calculator gives monthly production estimates for any address, so size from measured sun, not from a brochure.
Storage rules and prices keep moving
Battery chemistry, prices, and best practice change faster than panel prices do. The Department of Energy's energy storage pages track current technology and costs, and they are worth a look before you pick a chemistry.
Roof or ground, the panel math is the same
Whether the panels sit on a van roof, a cabin roof, or a ground rack, the count comes from your daily load and your sun hours. The solar panel calculator runs that math for any setup.
Questions
Frequently asked
Figures below are general planning ranges, not a quote or professional recommendation. Run the linked calculator with your own numbers, and confirm sizing and wiring with a licensed electrician or installer before purchase or installation.
Most off-grid cabins and full-time RVs need 800 to 1,600 watts of panels and 10 to 20 kWh of battery storage, depending on appliance load and how many cloudy days you want to ride through. The off grid panel count calculator and battery bank sizing tool work from your actual daily load list to get a specific number.
It depends almost entirely on distance. Utility line extension commonly runs $15,000 to $50,000 per mile, so a property more than a quarter mile from the nearest pole is often cheaper to run off-grid. The off-grid vs grid extension comparison runs both numbers side by side for your actual distance.
Full-time boondocking needs a system sized for your worst realistic week, not your average day, since cloudy stretches still have to be covered. The RV solar wattage calculator asks for your actual daily load so the answer fits how you actually travel.
A generator backup is common even with solar, mainly to cover multi-day cloudy stretches in winter without oversizing the battery bank for a rare event. The generator backup hybrid sizing tool shows how small a generator you can get away with once solar covers the average case.