What you are talking about is kind of like how an off-the-grid system works.

A buddy of mine has solar panels on his home, which charge a bank of batteries. The batteries than feed an inverter, which runs his house. In case the battery voltage drops too low, a stand-by propane/natural gas generator kicks on to charge the batteries and help power the home.


It's a great system, as he's completely independent of the power grid. He also bought a Chevy Volt for his daily driver, so now for most short trips he doesn't pay for gas either.

It has two major downsides though. The first is cost, his system was tens of thousands of dollars to set up. The second is the amount of space you need. Between the propane tank, generator, solar panels, battery bank, inverters and controllers it's definitely not a portable system.

You could probably make a portable size version, but it would put out a very low wattage for its size and weight. It would also likely be very expensive for the wattage.