Replacing on-board gas with lithium/solar & induction hob.

Pete7

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We bought the 1500w Sterling portable induction hub last summer but have only used it a couple of times. Main reason was all the nice M&S S/S pans we have on board don't work and the Boatie pan is aluminium. :rolleyes: That left us with just the kettle until we bought a another pan. The little Argos electric kettle boils 0.5L in 4m12s compared to the old gas cooker taking 4m30s. I forgot to time the kettle on the induction hob. 1200w on the induction hob is about 95A out of the lithium battery, but the inverter doesn't like the next highest 1400w setting. May have to increase the wiring size.

Pete
 

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geem

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I really don't understand the desire to go electric cooking. We have an induction hob for the very occasional use when we are in a marina but we use gas predominantly. We carry two grp gas bottles of 18 litre capacity and two camping gas bottles for when we are in Europe. In the Caribbean you can get bottles filled.
We have 720w of solar on the domestic batteries that provide about 2kw per day of power for normal boat use but includes making domestic hot water for washing up etc. We also make ice. There is little solar capacity left for electric cooking. My wife enjoys cooking. She makes bread, muisli, cakes etc that all need the oven. I can't imagine we could cope with electric cooking without running the generator to charge batteries. We would then be cooking inefficiently on diesel.
 

Pete7

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Sorry guy's - to me it seems a very complicated answer for a non existent problem.

I'm sticking to Propane!

I will install 400w of Solar and an Eperver MPPT controller this season though. That should allow less use of the genset.

Well yes, but having a combination is nice to have and substantially reduced our gas usage. 300w of solar this summer has meant we only use the kettle electric kettle now. Tempted by the new LG 440w bi-facial panels which have a clear back to absorb reflected sunlight. This adds 10-26% extra power compared to a similar sized panel.
 

Ademist

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We used an ikea portable induction hob (£35) across the pacific whenever we could sensibly use it; . It tended to be in the afternoons when the solar had mostly replenished the batteries (Trojan FLA) and the batteries weren’t taking much power.

We often used our Mr D’s cooker , so power consumption was generally low and usually taken from excess solar capacity . By the evening the meals were cooked and hot, although sometimes we would need to heat them up briefly.

it saved a lot of gas.
 

rotrax

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First Mate loves her 'Instant Pot' - a computerised electric pressure cooker. The smallest size is fantastic for our boat, saves much energy and cooks tasty food quickly.

She puts a Goulash or something else on when the genny is heating water for the morning shower. Usually makes three meals, the two extra portions kept in the freezer. On the rare occasions were have shore power she gets stuck in and fills our large freezer with tasty meals.

We have the above, a two ring Halogen Hob, a small 'Plancha' or flat grill plus the two ring gas hob with oven and grill.

Before anyone asks, we did not choose induction because she loves her high quality pans, which are unsuitable for induction.
 

coopec

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You may be a bit pessimistic there. We have a single induction hob used when connected to mains power and I would say it is on a medium/high setting 1kW/1.2kW initially for a few minutes then gets turned down to 400W or even lower to complete cooking. I would guess no more than 0.8 kW/hr to cook a complete meal.
No one has mentioned a thermal cooker which must save considerable power?
Billyboil Thermal Cooker 3L

If you are really interested in going electric you should google "WOW Induction Cooktop"
 
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geem

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Bread and cakes can also be made on the stove top (frying pan with lid, pressure cooker, etc.). Sure, it's different, but that doesn't mean that good results can't be produced.
We use a pressure cooker extensively but there are certain things my wife insists we need the oven for. I am not complaining. She a great cook and we eat very well
 

bergie

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I was looking into this when we upgraded our boat last spring. Here are some notes I collected:

Induction is about 20% more efficient than gas cooking. Average reported gas usage for cruisers is about 8L of propane per month (40kWh), meaning about 30kWh if that was induction instead.

That converts to 1kWh for cooking per day, so 80Ah@12V. Doable, would require about 300W of solar to produce in Berlin summer season.

Other conversion is that 1kg of propane is about 14kWh. In the shakedown cruise we used 3kg in four weeks. That's 10.5kWh per week, or 1.5kWh per day (115Ah@12V). About a third of that is weekly baking rye bread which we could probably do while either motoring or on shore power.


Our boat is already quite electricity-heavy since we also work on board. Switching to electric cooking would roughly double our power consumption. So for now, not really doable. We‘ll have to see how things look when we add more renewables (now we’re at 360W solar, planning to add more plus a wind gen).
 
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