This spring I acquired a full Go Power! solar system for my travel trailer as part of a partnership with the company. The system included the Solar Elite kit which includes: (2) 190-watt solar panels, a 2000-watt inverter / charger, wiring for the panels and inverter, and a host of other fuses and accessories to aid the installation. As for batteries, I selected a single 250 amp-hour lithium battery to replace my (2) 100 amp-hour wet cell batteries.
Why Go Power!? Their reputation. I’ve heard Go Power folks interviewed on podcasts like the RV Atlas and was always impressed how the rep made solar seem accessible. If you’ve ever shopped for solar, you know it can be daunting, but between the Go Power! Solar Guide and their online calculator, it made the complicated field of Solar seem pretty easy to understand.
After a full camping season, including a month on the road in the western United States, here’s my take:
Pros:
The solar panels are well constructed and come with a 25-year warranty, which is great
The inverter charger is really powerful; rather than just being an inverter, it includes three components (which saves space in my camper!): 2000 pure sine wave inverter (good for high tech gadgets like laptops and tablets) + 100 amp battery charger + automatic transfer switch
Not only were we able to boondock (camp off grid) this summer, enjoying AC appliances like our Instant Pot and coffee maker, but I was surprised how nice it was to pull off the road in the middle of a drive day and fire up the microwave to heat up some food
Go Power! Includes a lot of gear in their kits (fuses, wires, connections, etc.) to get you started. When I bought my potable panel a few years ago, I chose Go Power! partially because they included a bunch of adapters that I could use for different applications – I didn’t see other brands doing that
Customer support is FANTASTIC. I’ve never installed anything as sophisticated as a solar system before and a few times I ran into some head-scratching issues. The tech support folks were patient, took their time with me, and were always extremely helpful.
Lithium is AWESOME – this battery is great because I can discharge much lower than 50% (which is the case with all other battery chemistries), it charges faster, weighs less, and last much longer the traditional batteries. Go Power! Did a great job with this unit.
Cons:
While I had plenty of wire to install the solar panels and wire up the DC side of the inverter charter to the battery, there were no wires included in the kit to wire up the AC side. Not a big deal, but something to keep in mind when you’re putting your budget together
The solar charge controller connects to your mobile phone over Bluetooth, which is very cool, but the range is pretty limited – you have to be very close to the charge controller to get a connection and the unit I have has a bug where sometimes it won’t reconnect to your phone – support assured me they are working on the problem and will handle it within warranty when a fix comes out
Overall, I’m thrilled with our Go Power! Solar system. It gives us incredible freedom to camp comfortably even when we're away from RV campground hookups. With this system, we’ll be able to take extended trips to our family homestead out west or other interesting places like BLM land or Harvest Hosts.