Cooking on an electric stove requires a lot of energy. A 3000-watt home solar generator provides one of the most powerful portable power solutions for off-grid electricity for homes. Using an electric stove for a few minutes a day ends up consuming less power than most kitchen appliances like your refrigerator.
To run a 2,000-Watt electric stove you’ll need a 3000-Watt Solar Generator. This Solar Generator will run the Electric Stove for 1 hour. With a 900W solar panel, you can use the Electric Stove for up to 22 minutes without diminishing the battery capacity.
What Size Solar Generator to Run an Electric Stove
A solar generator works by converting the power in the battery through an inverter to AC power to run your appliance. Therefore in order to get the right size to run your electric stove you’ll need to match the power consumption of your appliance to the Inverter rating of the solar generator.
The power consumption of an electric stove will depend on the size; a 5-liter capacity with an element based on 2000W will use more electricity than a similar-sized model with an element based on 1000W. Portable stove tops tend to use less power than stove tops with oven bottoms. Also the larger the pot you use on your stovetop, the more energy it will require to heat up and maintain temperature.
An electric range will pull around 2000 watts on a single burner. If you are using multiple burners at the same time you will add up the numbers.
For this, you will need an Inverter rated higher than 2000 watts because of losses due to inefficiencies in the system. A 3000-watt inverter or higher should run the electric stove. Therefore a 3000-watt solar generator will run a 2000-watt solar generator.
The capacity of the solar generator will determine how long it can run your appliance.
How Long Will a 3000-Watt Solar Generator Run a 2000-Watt Electric Stove?
Electrical energy is measured in Watt-Hours. You run your appliance over a period of time and the time dictates how much power you use.
By using Watt-hours we take into consideration the number of hours you will be running your Electric Stove.
To calculate Watt-Hours you multiply the Wattage of the device or appliance and multiply by the number of hours you use the device.
Watt-Hours = Watts X Hours
If you want to use an electric stove for 1 hour, you will need 2000 Wh of energy.
Watt-hours will help us determine the number of solar panels and the size of the solar battery required to run our electric stove for an hour.
A 3000-watt solar generator will have a battery 24v 150Ah battery. With a lithium-ion battery, you can pull 100% of the battery in an hour. This means you can operate at a max of 150 amps but the operating voltage will be slightly lower at around 21V. This means the solar generator can only provide a maximum of 3000 watts per hour or 3000Wh.
To calculate the running time of an electric stove, you would use the following formula:
Running Time = Solar Generator Watt-hours/operating power of the device
= (3000*0.85)/2000
= 1.27 hrs
2000 Watt-hours is enough to run the electric stove for around 1 hr 16 minutes.
How Long Will a 2000-Watt Solar Generator Last with a 600-Watt Solar Panel?
A 150Ah 24V battery will need 37.5 amps of DC power to charge. A 900-watt Solar panel can provide 37.5 amps to charge the battery in around four hours. This will depend on the availability of sunlight. 4 hours of sunlight in an ideal situation should provide 3600Wh enough to recharge the solar generator. But this may take longer because of efficiency losses and overcast periods.
With this extra 900 watts going to the solar generator, this will increase the runtime for the electric stove.
= (900*0.85)/2000
= 0.38 hrs
A 900 Watt Solar Panel will add 22 minutes of run time after an hour of charging in good sunlight conditions. This means you can run the electric oven for 1 hr 36 minutes on the solar generator with a solar panel charging.
You can also just rely on the power from the solar panel for 22 minutes and maintain the capacity of the solar generator.
You’ll need around 15 minutes to preheat the electric stove so 22 minutes is enough to cook on the electric stove. This leaves enough power to use other items on the solar generator.
Recommendation
An electric stove requires a lot of power to run. Even a big solar generator will only run for some time. If you intend to run your electric stove off solar power it is best to run it for small periods of time or cook small meals in the oven. You should also consider using a portable electric stove will need around 1000 watts in order to run compared to 2000 watts from the conventional stove tops we have at home.