Solar Surveillance Trailer Runtime Calculator

Building a reliable autonomous system requires a delicate balance of energy generation, storage, and consumption. Several key factors dictate whether your trailer stays online during a storm or powers down completely.

1. Continuous Equipment Power Load: Your total energy draw is the foundation of your power system. Every PTZ camera, stationary bullet camera, network video recorder, and cellular router pulls electricity 24 hours a day. Even a minor 15-watt increase in continuous load requires significantly more battery storage to survive a multi-day weather event.
2. Battery Chemistry and Usable Capacity: Total battery capacity and usable capacity are very different numbers. Standard lead-acid or gel batteries should only be drained to a 50% to 80% depth of discharge depending on the specific manufacturer guidelines to prevent permanent damage. A 10,000 Watt-hour gel battery bank configured for an 80% discharge will only provide 8,000 Watt-hours of actual usable energy before the system shuts down.
3. Average Peak Sun Hours: Sunlight varies drastically by location and time of year. A trailer deployed in Texas might average five peak sun hours a day in the summer, but a deployment in the Pacific Northwest might only see two hours in the winter. You must always calculate your solar generation based on the worst-case winter scenario for your specific region.
4. Required runtime (Zero Sun): This tells the calculator how many days your trailer must operate on battery power alone during heavy rain, snowstorms, or thick cloud cover. A standard surveillance deployment requires at least 3 days of autonomous runtime to survive consecutive days of poor weather without shutting down.
5. System Inefficiency: No solar power system is perfectly efficient. Electricity is lost as it travels from the solar panels through the charge controller and into the battery bank. A standard off-grid calculation must account for an approximate 15% energy loss due to hardware inefficiencies and voltage conversion.