Estimating Battery Requirements

This example illustrates how quickly your battery needs can escalate. To reduce the required battery size, you can conserve energy by eliminating or reducing the use of some loads or by re-charging more frequently.

When sizing your battery, resist the temptation to skip the last step of this calculation (multiplying by 2). More capacity is better since you will have more reserve capacity, be better able to handle large loads and surge loads, and your battery won't be discharged as deeply. Battery life is directly dependent on how deeply the battery is discharged. The deeper the discharge, the shorter the battery life.

Battery Sizing Worksheet

Use the following worksheet to calculate your battery needs. To ensure sufficient battery capacity, be generous when estimating the operating time per day for each of the loads you will run.

 

 

 

Daily watt-

 

(A)

(B)

hours needed

 

Power

Operating Time

for this

 

Consumption

per day

appliance

Appliance

(Watts)

(Hours)

(= A x B)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

W

hours

Wh

 

 

 

 

 

W

hours

Wh

 

 

 

 

 

W

hours

Wh

 

 

 

 

 

W

hours

Wh

 

 

 

 

 

W

hours

Wh

 

 

 

 

 

W

hours

Wh

 

 

 

 

 

W

hours

Wh

 

 

 

 

 

W

hours

Wh

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total daily watt-hours of AC load

Wh

 

 

 

 

x Number of days between charges

 

 

 

 

 

= Total watt-hours of AC load between charges

Wh

 

 

Battery Ah used between charges (divide by 10)

Ah

 

 

 

 

Recommended Battery Bank Size in Ah (multiply by 2)

Ah

 

 

 

 

B–5