Electric stoves are among the most basic kitchen appliances, but they can also be the most energy-efficient. In fact, many portable stoves use only 1/5 to 1/8 of your home’s cooking power. The amount of power used by an electric stove depends on its capacity to heat up and maintain temperature.
For example, 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.
In this article, we take you through how much solar power you’ll need for an electric stove.
Solar Power for a 2000-watt Electric stove
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. So how much solar power will you need for a 2000-watt electric stove?
To run a 2000-watt electric stove for an hour you will need a 500-watt solar panel and two 200Ah lithium batteries wired in Series with a 3000-watt inverter.
For a portable electric stove, you just need half the capacity with a single 24v 200Ah battery or two 100Ah batteries wired in series, a 1500-watt inverter, and a 250-watt Solar Panel.
Let’s go through the numbers.
Electric oven Watt-hour Requirements
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. An electric kettle would consume around the same amount of power.
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.
What size Solar Panel needed to Run an electric stove
Solar panels are made up of many solar cells, which convert sunlight directly into electricity. The size of the solar array and the output is dependent on the area, altitude, and how far you are from the equator.
Let’s use a ballpark figure of 4 hours
2000Wh/4 = 250 Watts
You will need to oversize the system again because of conversion losses and changing weather conditions. You can go as high as three times but twice will be enough with a 500-Watt Solar panel.
So this is the size of solar panel you’ll need to get 2000 Watt-hours to your battery bank as it cannot power the stove directly. So what battery size do we need?
What Size Battery for an Electric Stove
From the example above we’ve seen, we’ll need around 2000 Wh in order to run an electric stove for an hour a day. In order to get the size of the battery, you would need to run it you will need to convert the Watt-hours to Amp-hours.
Amp-hours is 1-amp of power expended over one hour.
To calculate Amp-hours you divide the Watt-hours by the voltage. The voltage in a battery bank is usually between 12v and 24v depending on how you wire the system.
For a 12v battery;
2000 Wh/12v = 166 Ah
For a 24v battery bank;
2000 Wh/24v = 83 Ah
So we need 166 Amps over an hour for the 12v battery and 83 amps per hour for the 24v system.
Let’s go with the 24v system as we need fewer amps and wiring with this system.
We need a battery or battery bank that can support 83 amps in one hour. Solar batteries are designed to last for long periods of time and the recommended discharge per hour is 20% of its capacity. So if 83 amps is the 20% discharge then the battery should be at least five times this size. So the battery size is actually 400 Ah 24v battery or two 200 Ah batteries.
Our 500 Watt solar panel will be enough to recharge the power used by the cooker in 1 hour it will need more than 10 hours to fully recharge a depleted 400 Ah battery bank. So if you intend to use this battery bank with solar panels it is better to go for a 1000-watt solar panel or three 300-watt solar panels.
Inverter for 2000-watt Electric Stove
You will be running the electric stove through an inverter. For this, you will need an Inverter rated higher than 2000 watts because of losses due to inefficiencies in the system. A 2500-watt inverter or higher should do the trick.
Solar Power for a 1000-watt Portable Electric stove
As stated earlier portable stoves consume less power than conventional one. 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.
Since we’ve already calculated the amount of solar power for the 2000-watt electric range for an electric stove top you’ll need half of the power to run. So a 1000-watt electric stove top will need a 250 Watt solar panel and a 24V 200Ah lithium battery.
You will also need an inverter that is rated at least 1200 watts.
Conclusion
An electric stove top is a feature in many kitchens. Cooking on an electric stove requires a lot of energy but since you use it once a day it ends up consuming less power than most kitchen appliances like your refrigerator. Running an electric stove using solar power is a cost-effective and economical way of cooking.
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