I haven't taken inventory of actual power use lately. Certainly there are the known power hogs such as the Espar hydronic heater, but that won't be an issue when we head south. The refrigeration is probably our biggest single 24 hour drain. This Isotherm unit pulls about 5 amps steady state when on. The insulation is deficient, not a problem for this Swedish-built boat when in Sweden, but a big problem in the tropics. A similar boat to mine was running the fridge compressor 24x7, or about 120 amp-hours per day when in French Polynesia. A later owner found ways to add two-part foam around the outside. I think their efforts cut the duty cycle in half. We'll do what we can to improve the fridge insulation. That will be labor intensive but relatively cheap. They went to almost energy neutral with about 200 watts of solar.

We have gobs of halogen lights in the cabin. The ones we use all the time will be replaced by LEDs. We'll avoid using the others when in conservation mode. Nav lights will get Dr. LED retrofits. Windvane steering will help under sail. The new AIS unit draws only 250ma. While offshore, we can turn off the chartplotter/radar at least some of the time when prudent.

Netbook saves nav power.... Our iPhones save even more! I love those Navionics charts.

Then there's the upcoming watermaker... efficient but another big power draw.

Our battery and engine based charging will change a lot. We're going for a house bank of Odyssey batteries. These can take all the amps we can give it until it gets up to 90-95% full charge. We'll try to minimize using the main engine just for charging, but at least it will get loaded up by 160 + 60 amps of alternators. (We'll be running them derated so they don't melt down.) The Odysseys apparently tolerate deep discharge better than some technologies. We're hoping to play nice with the batteries when possible.

Our existing run-of-the-mill flooded batteries add up to 420 AH and has lasted over 8 years with way too much time at the dock. The new bank will be 700+ AH. We'll see how it all works out when cruising full time.

Our goal is to extend the time between significant recharging and tie up for a serious shore power recharge every few weeks. I'm willing to spend some bucks for quiet.

Nigel Calder's extensive data on efficiencies of typical gensets and main engines when used for charging are appallingly bad. He had an article in Sail Magazine recently on that. The Odyssey batteries help by allowing bulk charging at high amps up to 90% of full charge or more.