Powering Our Adventure: How We Designed a Gas-Free Energy System for Our Rigg

As the year winds down, we’ve paused our overland adventures and settled back into our “brick home” in Meerbusch, where we’re taking care of some personal commitments before hitting the road again in February.

Our next destination? The warmer climates of Spain, Portugal, and Morocco — a perfect escape from the European winter. Meanwhile, our beloved “mobile home” is back with Twiga, the team who brought our rigg to life. After putting our setup to the test during its maiden voyage, we’ve compiled a list of tweaks and upgrades to make it even better for the adventures ahead.

One of the core challenges of long-term overland travel is managing your energy supply. When you’re out in remote locations, far from civilization, you can’t rely on easily accessible power sources, especially if you want to avoid spending your precious time hunting for gas or electricity. That’s why we designed our mobile home to be entirely independent and built a robust electrical system that would support us through all our energy needs — from heating to cooking to staying connected via Starlink. The only energy source we need is refueling our truck once in a while.

Finding Solitude: We Love Exploring Remote Destinations.

We absolutely love escaping to remote, tranquil spots far from the noise of towns and buzzing streets. There's something magical about waking up surrounded by nothing but nature — whether it's dense forests, or secluded mountain ranges.

These are the places where we feel most connected to the world, immersed in the beauty and serenity that overlanding allows us to discover.

Let’s dive into how our electrical system was designed and how we expect it to perform in real-world conditions. This article is more focused on the technical side of things. If you are more interested about travel and pictures of nice landscapes, just skip the rest of this blog post.

15kWh of Power – Is It Enough?

Our rig is currently equipped with a 608Ah battery bank running at 24V, giving us a total of around 15kWh of energy. That sounds like a massive power reserve — and it is! When you consider the number of systems that rely on electricity in our setup, it quickly becomes clear that energy management is critical.

Unlike many overlanding rigs, we chose a no-gas policy from the outset. Having traveled extensively in Europe, we knew that dealing with gas systems was a nightmare. Every country has its own type of gas bottles and fittings, meaning you have to carry an array of adapters and hunt down shops to restock your supply. In winter, with heavy use for heating, you could go through a gas bottle every three days!

Another downside of using gas in an overland rig is the complications it brings when shipping your vehicle via roll-on-roll-off (RORO) ferries. These ferries, often used to transport rigs to destinations like Iceland, Canada or other remote locations, have strict safety regulations around gas systems. Gas tanks need to be emptied and certified, adding extra hassle and delays to the process.

By going gas-free, we’ve eliminated these concern entirely, making international travel far simpler and more efficient.

Diesel Heating and Electric Cooking

By going gas-free, we rely entirely on electricity for essentials like cooking, powering our fridge, and running the lights. For heating, we use diesel, but the heating system still requires electricity to operate. We also have an air conditioner for hot climates, though we haven’t had the chance to use it much yet. One thing we love about this setup is that during sunny summer days, we generate a lot of energy from solar, which we can store and use at night for cooling.

Additionally, staying connected is crucial for us. We run both a 5G router and Starlink for internet, both of which are essential for maintaining communication and sharing our adventures in real-time.

Energy Generation: Driving and Solar Power

To achieve true off-grid independence, we aimed to design a system that doesn’t rely on shore power. Ideally, we want to generate more energy than we consume, just from solar and from charging while driving. Here’s how we’ve set things up:

1. Driving Power: While driving, we generate currently about 50 amps, or roughly 150Ah for every 3 hours of driving. 3 hours driving is for us a typical amount for a driving day. This equates to around 3.6kWh of energy every day we drive. We’re also considering adding a second alternator to double this output.
2. Solar Power: Our roof-mounted solar panels have a 1.6kWp capacity, and in summer, we expect them to yield between 4-6kWh per day. On a good day, this alone could power the majority of our systems, especially during high-sunlight hours.

How Long Can We Stay Off-Grid?

The ultimate goal for our electrical system is to allow us to be completely self-sufficient for up to 5 days without needing any external power sources — no driving, no solar, just running off the battery.

Our preliminary experience shows that during the winter, when heating is required and nights are long (meaning we need heating, more light and warm cups of tea), we consume about 5kWh/day. 1.5kWh alone is the electrical energy need of the heating system. The main energy source for heating is diesel, however electricity is required for running pumps etc. On warmer days, we think we can get this consumption down to around 3-4kWh/day.

For 5 days of independence, this means we’d need around 20kWh in total. Given that our current battery setup holds 15kWh, we’re cutting it close. That’s why we decided to add a third battery to bring our storage up to 21kWh and double the charging capacity while driving. We should comfortably meet our 5-day goal without needing to recharge via driving or solar.

How Much Can We Replenish?

With our extended setup, 1 hour of driving generates around 2.4kWh of energy, while a full summer day of solar can produce around 6-7kWh. With a balanced combination of driving and solar, we could theoretically stay off-grid indefinitely. This is the ultimate goal — never having to rely on shore power, achieving true energy independence.

Real-World Testing: Upgrading for Unlimited Off-Grid Freedom

We finished our maiden voyage, where we were finally able to put these numbers to the test. The trip helped us understand how much energy we consume daily and how well the system performs under real-world conditions.

We decided to invest in the extra battery and additional charging capacity while driving to meet our off-grid goals. If our calculations hold up, we might just be able to stay off-grid for as long as we want, without ever needing to plug into shore power.

This is the future of overlanding, where energy independence lets us explore further and more freely.

Explore. Dream. Discover.