As we run our home light bulbs, television, laptops, and other appliances with inverters and deep-cycle batteries. Many have come to ask if the battery can power a refrigerator. And how many sets of deep-cycle batteries can run a refrigerator? Knowing the number of batteries to run your refrigerator will help you know how much to budget for your battery backup. Some factors can tell us how many batteries that can steadily power our refrigerator. These factors and how to suggest the deep-cycle battery for our refrigerator are explained below.
For a 1kw (1000w) refrigerator, two 150Ah – 200Ah by 24V or two 300Ah by 12V deep-cycle batteries can run it. The fridge power specifications differ and that’s why you need enough information from your refrigerator before quoting the batteries to power it.
Things to note down when calculating batteries to run a fridge.
The following factors help us take a good quotation of how many deep-cycle batteries to keep our refrigerator up and running. The reviews of the following factors will also suggest good specs of batteries, fridges, and inverters to go for that will suit our needs.
- The watts of the refrigerator: the Watts of the fridge should note down. As the size of the fridge differs so are the watts different, make sure to take note of its power specifications.
- The Amperage of the battery to use: these are the battery ratings to run the refrigerator, measured in voltage and amperage. When the necessary calculations are got right, the batteries will run the system smoothly without problems.
- The sources of charging the batteries: As we are calculating the number of batteries to use, what should be charging those batteries shall also be put into consideration. Is either we use diesel generators or solar panels. But solar panels are more ideal than generators.
- How long should the refrigerator be left ON: The duration the refrigerator is put in use should be considered too. Will it only be ON during the day or both during the day and night? This question you shall answer, depending on what you are using the refrigerator for. But some make use of it during the day when there is still sunlight .
- The wattage of the inverter to run the refrigerator: Always make sure the inverter and efficiency are good enough to withstand the power of the refrigerator.
How to determine the battery size to run a 1kW refrigerator.
Just for illustration’s sake, we are having a refrigerator of 1kw (1000w) and we wish to run it on a deep-cycle battery. But don’t know the amount of battery that can go for it. Below here I will explain how to know the amount of the battery bank to power this type of device. So continue reading.
We already know the power of our refrigerator to be 1000w. So what we need to know now is the amp-hour battery to run the load over a specific period.
So let’s find the amp hour storage battery to do the work for us. The amp hour of a battery is the watts hours of a battery divided by the voltage of the same battery.
Amp-hour = watts hour / Volts.
Another thing we have to consider is the efficiency of the inverter in use. When buying an inverter always go for a good quality inverter with high efficiency. Let’s take 85% to be our inverter efficiency.
Steps by step guide to estimate the deep-cycle battery to run 1kw of refrigerator
Step 1.
The Amp-hour needed for the system.
1000watts / 0.85 = 1176Ah. Where 1000 watts Is the power of the refrigerator and 0.85 is the efficiency of the inverter.
1176Ah is what is needed to power the fridge. But this power can go up or down depending on the voltage we are operating.
Step 2.
Choosing the voltage of the deep-cycle battery to make use of. Batteries are designed in so many volts ranging from 6V, 12V, 24V and so many others. So is left for you to choose the ones to make use of depending on what purpose you want the battery to serve.
Here is the simple way to chose the right battery volts for your system.
Choose a battery voltage that are same with the inverter voltage. When using a 12v inverter, your battery volts shall be made 12v.
step 3
As we already know the battery voltage we are building to our system. The next thing is to use the voltage to estimate the size of the battery to purchase.
So, 1176Ah / 12 = 98Ah. For 12v battery.
We need a 100Ah by 12V battery to run 1000watts of the refrigerator.
In case the inverter in use is 24V. Then we divide the 1176 by 24v.
1176ah / 24v = 49Ah. For 24V battery
which is 50Ah, 24V can run the refrigerator.
Now is certain from our calculations you can use a 100Ah, 12v battery, or 50Ah 24v battery to run a 1000watts refrigerator.
Because we can’t use all the battery capacity, only 50% of the battery charges are useable and should be recharged when it goes down to 50%. Depending on the did of the battery you want to use. Some have a DOD of 75% but we are considering 50% for this post. Check out your battery DOD when doing your estimation. We consider doubling the batteries to get a perfect result that can run the fridge for 24 hours with our other energy-consuming devices.
That should then be 200Ah, 12v, or 100Ah 24v to run the 1000watts fridge. That is for an ideal state. But when we consider that the weather and the inverter efficiency used for the calculation may not be 100% accurate. Because weather can not guarantee us of steady intensive sun and our inverter efficiency may drop as time goes on. Then we consider adding some percentage of values to our gotten values.
That is why I choose 150Ah, 24v, or 300Ah, 12v minimum to run your refrigerator to give you enough power to keep it running all the time.
Will a 1000W inverter run with a deep-cycle battery run refrigerator?
Some high-quality 1000W inverters that can provide a surge power of 2000W- 3000w can run some of our refrigerators. In most cases, the refrigerator needs more power to start up and as it is running, it starts to use lesser power. So the surge power of the inverter to use should be checked to make sure it can start up the fridge. A Power of 200w – 300w can be used to keep the fridge running after starting. With a 1000w inverter and enough battery, it will keep your refrigerator running.
Before purchasing an inverter for your refrigerator, try to know the amount of power to start and run your refrigerator. if the inverter surge power can start and run the fridge smoothly or you go for higher one. Some refrigerator require a 35000w surge to run, if you have this type of refrigerator consider going for 3000w inverter.
Note: with enough solar panels, a good inverter (pure sine wave), and batteries, the refrigerator will be working fine during sunny hours without draining the batteries. Only in the night that the fridge start to draw energy from battery.
Conclusion.
As we know the refrigerator is a very highly power-consuming device. When planning to run them off the inverter make sure to have enough solar panels and always run the refrigerators during the sunny hour to save your battery energy.
