You don’t have time to wait for your hair to dry naturally. Sometimes you just need to get out of the house quickly, and waiting for your hair to dry is not an option. Solar generators are great for powering your devices while off the grid. But, can you use a solar generator to power a hair dryer off-grid?
The answer is Yes, but this will depend on the type and size of the hair dryer. For a typical home 1500-watt hair dryer you’ll need a 2000-Watt Solar Generator. This Solar Generator will run the Hair Dryer for a max of 54 minutes. With the addition of 600W solar panels you can the Hair Dryer for around 1 hr 14 minutes.
You can opt to run your hair dryer for short periods of time and this will allow you to use other appliances on the solar generator. This includes running an electric kettle of the same wattage for a couple of minutes.
In this article, we take you through how to pick a solar generator for your hair dryer and what else you can run off the solar generator.
What Size Solar Generator to Run a Hair Dryer?
Most hair dryers have three settings: low, medium, and high. The higher the setting, the more energy it uses. If you set the temperature to low or medium, you’ll use less power. The best way to save power when using a hair dryer is to use it in cold air mode. We look at how much solar power including solar panels and batteries to run a hair dryer.
Unheated air can use as few as 70 watts of power, but a hairdryer on high heat will use around 1500 watts. The amount of power used will also depend on the amount of time you use the hair dryer.
You will be running this power through an inverter in the solar generator. An inverter converts the DC power from the batteries to AC power to be used by your hair dryer. You will need an inverter with a rating higher than the hair dryer. So if you are using a 1500-watt hair dryer you need an inverter that is at least 2000-watt.
So to run a 1500-watt hair dryer you’ll need a 2000-watt solar generator. While the inverter rating determines if the solar generator can run the hair dryer the capacity of the solar generator will determine the length of time it can run.
How Long Will a 2000-Watt Solar Generator Run a 1500-Watt Hair Dryer?
Electrical energy is measured in watt-hours. One watt-hour equals one watt expended for one hour. The number of watt-hours used by an appliance over a period of time equals the total amount of power consumed by that device over that period.
To calculate watt-hours, multiply the watts used by an appliance over a period of time by the number of hours that appliance is used. If you use a hair dryer for an hour, it will consume about 1500 watt-hours.
A 2000-watt solar generator will have a battery 24v 100Ah battery. With a lithium-ion battery, you can pull 100% of the battery in an hour. However, the BMS will be set to around 80% at around 21v operating at a max of 80 amps at a voltage of around 21V. Hence the 1600-watt-hour rating. There will also be losses due to conversion and when calculating the running time you’ll need to multiply this by 0.85.
= (1600*0.85)/1500
= 0.90 hrs
A 2000-watt Solar Generator can run the hair dryer for around 54 minutes. When hooked up on a solar panel this could be longer. However, you may not need to run the hair dryer for this long. 15 minutes is enough and it is not recommended to run your hair dryer for more than 30 minutes.
How Long will a 2000-watt Solar Generator last with a 600-watt solar panel?
A 100Ah 24V battery will need 25 amps of DC power to charge. A 600-watt Solar panel can provide 25 amps to charge the battery in around four hours. Check on the recommended solar panel for your solar generator.
With the extra 600 watts going to the solar generator, you can potentially run it for longer.
= (600*0.85)/1500
= 0.34 hrs
With the solar panel hooked on the 2000-watt solar generator can run the hair dryer for an additional 20 minutes for a total of 1 hr 14 minutes. But with enough sunlight you can use the sunpower directly to dry your hair and use the solar generator to run your air conditioner.
Conclusion
You won’t be using a hair dryer for an hour especially when you are off-grid. You don’t want to waste the precious juice from your battery bank on your hair when you need to keep the refrigerator on. if you just need to dry your hair or just style it a bit 15 minutes can be enough. So how much power would you need for 15 to 30 minutes of use?
| Length in time | Watt-hour Requirements |
| 1 hr | 1500Wh |
| 30 minutes | 750 Wh |
| 15 minutes | 325 Wh |
Remember that only half of the capacity has been used up and you can the hair dryer intermittently or plug in other appliances.
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