Off-Grid Power for a Travel Trailer: What We Actually Use
Off grid, our travel trailer runs on one big lithium battery that solar panels on the roof keep topped up. When the sun can’t keep up, we have a portable power station and two generators as backup.
That’s the setup today. A year ago it was the factory batteries and a solar controller we didn’t understand yet. Here’s how it all works for us, with what we paid at the end.
Where we started: a beeping box at 5 a.m.
In September 2025, in our first week with the Brinkley, we camped at Rabbit Valley in McInnis Canyons out by the Colorado and Utah line. No shore power out there, so we experimented. At 5 a.m. something started beeping and wouldn’t stop. It turned out to be the solar controller. We pushed a button and it went quiet. Then we woke up to a 40 degree morning, still not sure what it had been telling us. It’s in Episode 1.
What does a lithium battery do in a travel trailer?
The house battery runs everything in the trailer that’s 12 volt, like the lights and the furnace blower. Anything that plugs into a wall outlet goes through an inverter, which turns the battery’s 12 volt DC into 120 volt AC. Ours is a Rich Solar 3,000 watt pure sine inverter. It only inverts. It doesn’t charge the battery.
The trailer came with lead acid batteries, which don’t like being drained deep and recharge slowly. Lithium (LiFePO4 in most RVs) lets you use far more of its capacity and takes a charge faster.
Our Epoch 12V 460Ah Elite was the single biggest purchase of our whole setup. Here’s what Epoch lists for it:
- 460Ah at 12.8 volts nominal, which is 5.89 kWh of stored energy
- A built-in heater, so it can charge in the cold (charging pauses at 32°F and resumes once the cells warm to 41°F)
- A Bluetooth state of charge meter
- Victron communication over CANbus
- A built-in 400 amp Class T fuse
Two things worth knowing. First, the Victron communication only matters if you have a Victron GX hub to talk to, and our trailer doesn’t have one, so that feature is waiting on a future upgrade. Second, it weighs 97.55 pounds. This is not a drop-in battery that slides into the tongue box.
It also sat in our garage for months. Steve at RVFix Mobile Repair came out to our storage lot and did the install, and it was finished and paid for on August 20, 2026, three days before we left on our late-summer trip. Getting there wasn’t smooth. Hours after the battery first went in, in early August, it read a healthy 13.3 volts at the posts and there was no 12 volt power at the trailer’s fuse panel. It got sorted before we left, but if you’re planning this upgrade, leave yourself more than three days.
How much solar do you need on an RV?
There’s no one right number. It depends on how much power you use and how much sun actually reaches the panels.
I think there’s about 440 watts of panels on the roof now, but we only get about 220 watts out of them, and that’s frustrating. The way the new panel was wired in with the original one, the whole system is held to what that original panel can produce. The controller itself can handle more. So the plan is to separate the original panel back onto its own setup, then add another panel and a second controller so both run at full output.
The panels feed a Victron SmartSolar MPPT 100/30 charge controller. MPPT stands for maximum power point tracking. The controller keeps adjusting to pull the most power the panels can make as the light changes. The SmartSolar has Bluetooth built in, so you can check what the panels are doing from a phone in the VictronConnect app.
With no hookups, the Epoch lasts us about 4 to 5 days when it’s sunny and we’re careful.
The first real test was that late-summer trip. Mancos State Park has no electric hookups at campsites, and Hovenweep has no hookups at all. We ran a generator at every dry stop, and that trip is how we ended up owning two of them. More on that below.
Before the new battery, it was a different story. Over the Fourth of July on Forest Road 700 in Wyoming, we had to run the generator a lot, which was annoying.
Why carry a power station and generators too?
Because the battery is the tank, and these are two different ways to fill it or work around it.
The Anker Solix F2000 ($1,298.46) is a big rechargeable battery with outlets on it. Ours is the 2,048 watt hour LiFePO4 model, and Anker lists it at 2,400 watts of continuous AC output with an RV-style TT-30 port. There’s no engine, so there’s no generator noise, which matters at campgrounds with quiet hours.
Here’s the catch. Even with that 30 amp plug, we can’t run the trailer from it. The trailer’s charger (the part that charges the house battery) pulls too much and trips the Anker. The one exception was a time when our trailer battery was already at 100 percent. Nothing was charging, so the Anker could power everything. Otherwise it doesn’t work that way.
So this is how we actually use it to save power. It usually runs the Starlink. We also run an extension cord from the Anker in through the door to a power strip with a surge protector, and that strip powers:
- our computers and the projector
- the Apple TV
- all of our phone charging
None of that touches the RV’s electrical.
Ours came with a 400 watt portable solar panel, and we use it constantly to charge the Anker. We tilt it and move it around the campsite to follow the sun.
A generator is the heavy lifter, for big loads and fast charging. Our main one is the maXpeedingrods 4,000 watt ($902.52). It’s dual fuel, so it runs on gasoline or propane. It’s also an inverter generator, which means it converts its output to cleaner, steadier power than an old-style open frame generator. It can throttle down when the load is light, which usually makes it quieter. Plenty of campgrounds limit generator hours. Pine Flat in Oak Creek Canyon, for one, allows no generators during quiet hours.
The generator also matters for Rindo. She’s fine staying in the trailer while we’re out, as long as the power is on, and running the generator for her is part of how that works on a hot afternoon.
Why we now own two generators
Our main generator is the red and white maXpeedingrods from Amazon, the one with Bluetooth. At Mancos State Park near Mesa Verde in September 2026, it got wet in the rain and stopped working. We’re still not sure the rain was the cause. We spent the whole next day trying to get it running. We were camped under trees, so solar couldn’t carry us.
So I drove to the Walmart in Cortez and bought a second one, a blue Pulsar PG5250BCO dual fuel with CO Sentry, for $575.03. It’s much more powerful, and it’s also a lot louder.
We had two generators for the rest of that trip, and it was very effective. And of course, the day after we bought the Pulsar, the original started working again.
On our final trip before Erin’s surgery, we left the Pulsar home and only brought the original. It failed again. At Sand Gulch, four nights with no hookups, it wouldn’t start at all. So we got through on solar and a little help from the Anker. It was challenging, but we made it all four nights.
I still need to figure out what’s wrong with it. Until I do, I almost have to bring both.
For reference, here’s what the Pulsar’s label says:
| Fuel | Peak watts | Rated watts |
|---|---|---|
| Gasoline | 5,250 | 4,250 |
| Propane | 4,750 | 3,850 |
How do you keep track of it all?
I love the Bluetooth monitoring on the generator (when it works) and on the Anker. The new Epoch battery has an app too. The Epoch app is a joke, and I don’t know why it’s so bad. But it does work, and it’s really nice to track our energy.
Eventually I’d like a Victron display screen inside the RV, so we can see everything in one place. That isn’t happening yet.
Do you need a surge protector for an RV?
It was one of the first things we bought, in August 2025. Campground pedestals are not all wired well, and the trailer’s electronics are expensive to replace.
Ours is a Hughes Power Watchdog 50 amp ($439.19). It sits between the pedestal and the trailer’s cord. Hughes says the emergency power off models cut power if the voltage drops below 104 volts or climbs above 132. Power comes back on by itself once things have been stable for 90 seconds. The surge module is replaceable, so one big surge doesn’t mean buying a whole new unit, and the app shows what the pedestal is doing.
A surge protector earns its keep at hookup sites, like our full hookup site at Navajo State Park.
One small part is easy to overlook, and that’s the bonding plug. Some portable generators have a floating neutral, and a surge protector that checks for an open ground can read that as a fault and refuse to pass the power. A bonding plug in one of the generator’s outlets is the common fix, and it costs about twelve dollars.
The rest of the bin is adapters and small parts, because campgrounds don’t agree on plugs:
- Camco 15 ft 50 amp extension cord ($97.15)
- 2 AWG battery to inverter cables ($72.75)
- SUNER POWER 12 watt solar battery maintainer, which keeps a 12 volt battery from going flat while it sits ($64.93)
- Camco 30 amp to 50 amp dogbone adapter ($34.03)
- Twist lock 30 amp to RV 30 amp adapter ($20.21)
- MECMO 30 amp to 50 amp adapter ($16.18)
- Camco 15 amp to 30 amp dogbone adapter ($11.92)
- Neutral ground bonding plug ($11.90)
- BougeRV roof cable entry gland for solar wiring ($10.79)
What does it cost to power a travel trailer off grid?
For us, a little over $6,700, and the battery is the biggest piece. The install line also covers a tool box. Everything except the install is part of the $16,260.42 we spent getting set up. The install landed in the repairs line of our yearly running cost instead.
Here’s the whole power setup:
| What | When | What we paid |
|---|---|---|
| Epoch 12V 460Ah heated lithium battery (with mounting hardware) | April 2026 | $2,286.40 |
| Anker Solix F2000 power station | October 2025 | $1,298.46 |
| maXpeedingrods 4000 watt dual fuel inverter generator | April 2026 | $902.52 |
| RVFix Mobile Repair: solar panel and battery install (plus a tool box) | August 2026 | $871.17 |
| Pulsar PG5250BCO dual fuel generator (our second one) | September 2026 | $575.03 |
| Hughes Power Watchdog 50 amp surge protector | August 2025 | $439.19 |
| Cords, adapters, cables and small parts (9 items, listed above) | 2025 to 2026 | $339.86 |
| Total | $6,712.63 |
Questions people ask
What does an RV inverter do?
It turns the battery’s 12 volt DC power into 120 volt AC, so wall outlets work without a hookup. Ours is a 3,000 watt pure sine inverter. It does not charge the battery, so charging comes from solar or from plugging in (to a pedestal or the generator).
Can a lithium RV battery charge in freezing weather?
Not on its own. LiFePO4 cells shouldn’t be charged below freezing, which is why heated batteries exist. Epoch says our battery pauses charging at 32°F and runs its heater, then resumes charging once the cells reach 41°F.
Can a portable power station run a travel trailer?
Ours can’t, even though it has a 30 amp RV plug. The trailer’s charger pulls too much and trips it. The only time it worked was when our house battery was already full, so nothing was charging.
How long does a 460Ah lithium battery last in an RV?
It depends on what you run and how much sun you get. Ours lasts about 4 to 5 days with no hookups when it’s sunny and we’re careful.
How much did your off-grid power setup cost?
$6,712.63 across the battery and the install, plus the power station and two generators. The surge protector and a box of adapters make up the rest. The battery was the biggest single piece at $2,286.40.
See you down the road,
Matt