An Electric kettle is a common household appliance. They’re used to heat water quickly and efficiently, as well as for boiling water for other purposes such as cooking or cleaning.

The amount of power an electric kettle uses depends on three things:

The size of the kettle. The bigger the kettle, the more water it can hold and the longer it takes to heat up. The larger the kettle, the more energy it uses.

The type of heating element. A heating element that heats up quickly uses less energy than one that takes longer to reach boiling point.

How often you use your kettle. If you use your kettle every day or multiple times a day then it will use more energy than if you only use it occasionally.

We look at how much solar power you need to Run an electric kettle

Solar Power for 1500-watt Electric Kettle 

 If you want an electric kettle that boils water quickly, then look for one with high wattage of around 1500 Watts you can opt for a low-wattage kettle but it will take longer.  So how much solar power do you need to run a 1500-watt electric kettle?

You’ll need at least two 200-watt solar panels and a 300Ah 24v Lithium Battery to run a 1500-watt electric kettle. To run the same kettle for 15 minutes you can use a 100-watt solar panel with a 100Ah 12V LiFePO4 battery. 

We take you through the numbers:

Electric kettle Energy Requirement 

When you are determining how much energy a device uses, you must consider the amount of time that it will be used. A Watt-hour is a product of multiplying a device’s wattage by its run time in hours. 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 kettle for 1 hour you will need 1500Wh for 15 minutes you need 375 Wh of energy. 

How Many Solar Panels for an Electric Kettle?

The size of the solar panel is dependent on the area, altitude, and how far you are from the equator. For example: If you’re in North America and want to charge an electric kettle using solar energy, then you would need a larger solar panel than if you were in Australia or South America.

This is why we use a ballpark figure of 4 hours as this would apply to everyone in any season. However, sun hours can last up to 6 to 8 hours in some regions. 

If you are in an area that receives around 4 hours of sunlight a day you will divide the total Watt-hour requirement by this number. 

In order to determine how many solar panels are needed for an electric kettle, we divide the total watt-hours required by the number of sun hours we get in a day. So In the case, we are using our electric kettle for an hour you need around 1500Wh. 

An example is to use an average of 4 hours which could be high peak hours in the afternoon between 12 and 4. If you get more than 4 hours of sun per day, then use that number. 

1500Wh/4= 375 Watts

A 400-Watt solar panel or two 200-watt solar panels will be enough to provide 1500Wh in the course of the day. Solar panels are not that expensive so you can even go double up to four 200-Watts solar panels and collect more power. 

What Size Battery Bank for an Electric Kettle 

 The next thing we need to do is determine how many amp-hours we will need to store all of this power generation capability from our solar panels. 

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. 

To find the size of the battery, you divide the watt-hours by the voltage. In the case, you have a 12-volt system, so you divide 900Wh by 12V and for the 24V system, you divide by 24V. 

1500/12 = 125 Ah

1500/24 = 62.5 Ah

This however does not give you the size of the battery you need but the capacity of the battery reserve that the electric kettle is pulling through your inverter.  So you need a battery that you can safely pull 125 amps per for the 12v system and 62.5 amps per hour for the 24v system.

While a LiFePO4 battery has a 1C rating which means you can pull the full capacity from the battery manufacturers usually recommend 0.2C meaning you discharge 20% of the capacity. This means to pull 125 amps you’ll need a battery that is at least 600 Ah battery and a 300Ah 24v battery for 62.5 amps. 

Inverter for 1500-Watt Electric Kettle

You will be running your electric kettle through an inverter. An inverter converts the DC power from the battery to AC power. AC power is much like the power you get from your wall outlet. 

How Much Solar Power to Run an Electric for 15 minutes

The time it takes to bring water to a boil in an electric kettle depends on how much water you have in it and how high you set the temperature setting on your appliance. For example, if you have a 1-quart capacity kettle and set it to high heat, then it will take approximately 2 minutes to four minutes for the water to reach boiling point. 

If you use it multiple times a day like three times like me I don’t go beyond 15 minutes of use a day for my electric kettle. This is a quarter of an hour so you can estimate using the watt-hours previously given. 

For the solar panel

375/4 =93.75 watts

A 100-watt solar panel will be enough. But we can take this to 150 amps. 

For the battery you’ll need:

375/12 =31.25Ah

So can we use a 30Ah battery? No. Since we are using these amps for over an hour(remember the 0.2c we had mentioned earlier you will need to size the battery appropriately to 5 times. So you will need a 150Ah battery. However, you can use a 100Ah lithium battery. 

If you’re running an electric kettle for 15 minutes a 100 Ah LiFePO4 battery will be able to support a high-wattage appliance like your electric kettle. However, you should not hook up many high-wattage appliances at once. For instance an air fryer these two appliances will overwhelm the system.

It will also support the 12.5 amps from the 150-watt solar panel comfortably to fully recharge in around 8 hours. Since the battery can support 20 amps of charge you can size the solar panels up to 300 watts because of efficiency losses. 

Also, note that you will still need an inverter rated higher than 1500 watts. 

Conclusion

An electric kettle is a high-wattage appliance that uses a lot of power. However, you don’t need a big solar system in order to run it for short periods of time.  A 100-watt solar panel paired with a 100-Ah Lithium battery will be enough to run your electric kettle for 15-mins a day.