So I've finally taken the plunge and fitted a 50 litre compressor fridge (a secondhand Alpicool CT50) in my van, and honestly the power draw is killing me during these grey winter months. I'm running a 200W panel on the roof feeding into a 100Ah lithium battery, which felt plenty when I was just charging phones and running LED lights. Now the fridge is cycling every 20 minutes or so and I'm watching the battery drop faster than I expected.
From what I can tell the fridge is pulling around 4-5A when the compressor kicks in, and on a decent summer day I reckon I'd be fine. But we're talking November in the southwest — I'm lucky to see 2-3 hours of usable solar generation on most days. I did a rough calc and I think I'm only pulling in maybe 400-600Wh on a good day, and the fridge alone seems to want around 300-400Wh over 24 hours depending on ambient temp.
Has anyone stretched a similar setup further without spending a fortune? I'm wondering whether insulating the fridge more (foam board around the sides?) would make a noticeable difference, or whether I just need to bite the bullet and add a second panel. A 100W flexible panel is going for about £65 on Amazon right now — not sure if that's a decent shout or if there's a better way to spend that money first.