Been mulling this over for a while now. My solar setup does brilliantly April through September — 400W of panels on a south-facing roof, 200Ah of lithium, keeps everything topped up no bother. But come November the panels barely sneeze out enough to keep the fridge ticking, and I end up with a half-flat bank by mid-afternoon. Last winter I was genuinely caught out twice during storms when we had three days of near-zero generation.
I've been looking at small inverter generators as a top-up solution — not running all day, just enough to chuck 10-15A into the batteries for a couple of hours when things get desperate. The Honda EU22i keeps coming up in searches but at £1,100+ it feels steep when I'm only expecting to use it maybe 20-30 times a year. The Hyundai HY2000Si is about half the price — anyone got real-world experience with that one, particularly on noise and fuel consumption at partial load?
The other thing I can't quite work out is the right wattage bracket. My inverter charger (Victron Multiplus 12/3000) can pull a fair chunk of power but I'd rather run a smaller, quieter genny efficiently than a bigger one loafing along. Is 2kW genuinely enough or does the startup surge on the charger cause grief?
