Bouge RV’s Battery-Powered Portable Fridges Make Going Off Grid Easy (CleanTechnica Tested)
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Bouge RV has been a staple brand in the affordable solar and portable refrigeration space for years. Over the last few years, they have really ramped up their efforts to flesh out the product line, improving the quality of their products at the same time.
Disclaimer: Bouge RV provided the 41 qt Rocky Fridge, 100 watt flexible solar panel, and USB camping light to the author for the purposes of this review.
We originally reviewed their compact 30 quart fridge 4 years ago and it has been running like a champ ever since. I’ve taken it all over the country from the West Coast to the East Coast up into Canada and down to the remote Texas beaches bordering Mexico. It hasn’t skipped a beat, so when they reached out about their latest fridge, I was eager to see if it stood up to the high bar set by the original fridge they sent me.
The Rocky 41 Quart Portable Refrigerator
The Bouge RV Rocky 41 quart refrigerator is built like a tank. It features a full stainless steel build with robust handles and plastic bumpers on the corners that help it slide into and out of the bed of a truck. The durability and thoughtful exterior features make it a great option for outdoor activities like camping and overlanding.
Bouge RV uses the same refrigerator base for all of their Rocky refrigerators, so at 47 lb, the 41 quart variant weighs more than a dedicated 41 quart unit otherwise would. As a result, their larger Rocky fridges offer better weight-to-capacity ratios. For example, the 55 court Rocky fridge only weighs 2 lb more than the 41 quart.
All of their Rocky fridges feature a dual-zone layout that allows you to set one side to be a fridge and the other side to be a freezer, allowing you to bring both your milk and your ice cream along for the ride.
The big innovation Bouge RV brought to the market since we last tested their products was adding an integrated battery to their refrigerators. Doing this brings several benefits, first of which is the ability to move the refrigerator around from the house to the car or even out to the park for the day without having to worry about where you’re going to plug it in.
Bouge RV says the optional, removable 240 Wh battery will keep the fridge running for up to 20 hours off of a fully charged battery without the need to plug in. We tested that and found that in ideal conditions, this holds true. In our testing, we also threw the book at it, running around through the hot California deserts and in 110°F weather in the back of the truck underneath a black top. A lot more energy was needed from the battery to keep the fridge down at the ideal temps.
In our testing, the battery supported about 12 hours of use even in these extreme conditions. We could have extended this further by opening the top to allow free-flowing air, raising the temperature set point of the fridge, or using both sides as refrigerators instead of keeping one side set to the freezer. But that’s the point of testing. Honestly, I was surprised the fridge even stayed on and cool at all in what was basically an oven driving through the middle of Death Valley.
Solar-Powered Refrigeration
The ability to power the refrigerator from an integrated battery gets really exciting when you realize you can tab directly into one of Bouge RV’s solar panels to keep the battery topped up. They sent us their 100 watt flexible solar panel, and at just 4.6 pounds or just over 2 kilograms, it’s a great reminder just how far solar technology has come.
In addition to the optional 240 watt-hour battery, you’ll need to pick up an MC4 to female XT60 adapter. This is included with some of Bouge RV’s folding solar panels, but not their flexible solar panels.
In this configuration, you can plug any solar panel with MC4 connectors directly into the Bouge RV battery, using the sun’s energy to keep your kombucha at the perfect temperature.
We wired up Bouge RV’s 100 watt flexible solar panel to the 41 quart Rocky refrigerator, and together, they were able to offset the refrigerator’s startup draw and ongoing usage during the day. With a fully charged battery and the ability to keep the fridge running for 12–20 hours, it should even stretch through the night on all but the hottest of temperatures.
Pairing portable panels with refrigerators and batteries like this is great for temporary setups like a day at the park or quick trips to the beach. For more involved setups where you’ll be on the road for multiple days in a vehicle, it will likely make more sense to mount the solar panels to the vehicle, where you can then wire them into a proper house battery or directly into the fridge.
Overall
Bouge RV offers a wide range of camping activities that bring many of the benefits of sustainable living to the masses. They have made it quick, easy, and relatively affordable to install solar and storage just about anywhere on Earth. Their new line of battery-supported refrigerators take that to the next level — though, they are still on the heavy side. Thankfully, the battery can be removed to make them a tad lighter.
Bouge RV also offers kits that pair their fridges with batteries and different size solar panels to let you build the right kit to support your adventures. It’s really neat how they thought through the full system and built out an ecosystem around it.
For more information about Bouge RV or their products, head to their official website.
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