I have a 38' light and narrow boat with the following: 12kbtu/hr ac/heat, 6.5kbtu/hr ac/heat, 1500w water heater, 140w fridge, and lots of little loads. The 5kW handles all this at around 75% load. To turn on the dive compressor, water heater must be off. That's about the only load management I need to do. And since dive compressor is not regularly used, it is not an issue.
A 5kW suits my needs very well. I think most trawlers could run on a 5 unless you start getting into bigger boats with the larger airs. I could probably run a 16 in the salon and still use the same gennie.
The 5kW with fridge and AC's cycling on and off all night averages about one gal in three hours. Probably averages about 1/3 to 1/2 load.
When not using ac's, a 1000w inverter runs fridge, coffeepot, laptop, etc, and gennie is off.
Very pleased with the system design.
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