An 1800 watt portable induction burner draws 15 amps on a household circuit and roughly 150 amps out of a 12 volt battery bank. Avanti publishes 1800W, 120V and 15A for its IH1800L1B-IS, checked August 19, 2026. TableCraft publishes 1800W at 120 volts for its CW40195. That is the top of each unit’s range, and the top of the range is what your inverter and your wiring have to survive.
The arithmetic
1,800 watts divided by 12 volts is 150 amps. Inverter losses push that up rather than down, and the current climbs further as the bank sags under load. Treat 150 amps as the floor.
That settles three things fast:
- A 1000W or 1500W inverter will not run this burner at full power. 2000W continuous is the practical floor.
- 150 amps of DC needs cable and a fuse sized for it. This is not a socket-adapter load.
- On a generator, check the continuous rating rather than the peak. Generator sizing walks through the difference.
The number that actually matters
Watts tell you whether it will run. Watt-hours tell you whether you can afford it, and cooking is short.
1,800 watts for 10 minutes is 300 watt-hours. Twenty minutes at an average of half power is the same 300Wh. Call a typical meal 200 to 400Wh, which is 17 to 34 amp-hours at 12 volts.
Set that against the bank. A 100Ah lithium battery at 12.8 volts nominal holds about 1,280Wh, so a 300Wh meal is roughly a quarter of it. A 100Ah AGM gives you something closer to 50Ah before you start trading away cycles, and that same meal eats over half of it. We took the lead acid side of that apart in what a 100Ah AGM actually gives you.
The cost nobody budgets for
The inverter is on all day, not just while you cook. Our inverter idle draw piece covers what that runs to over 24 hours. Install a 2000W inverter for a burner you use for 20 minutes and you pay its no-load draw for the other 23 hours and 40 minutes unless you switch it off at the panel.
Neither unit forces you to cook at full power. Avanti lists six preset power levels, TableCraft lists 20. Simmering is a small load. Bringing a full pot to a boil is not, and that is the part of the meal that sets your inverter size.
The verdict
Induction works off-grid if you built for it: 2000W or more of inverter, lithium, heavy DC cable, and enough solar or alternator charging to put 300Wh back the same day. Add a cooking load in the solar calculator and watch what it does to the array.
If your setup is a 100Ah lead acid battery and a 1000W inverter, propane stays the cheaper answer, and wanting the induction hob does not change the arithmetic. Our power budget guide is where to start if you want to size the whole system around cooking rather than bolt cooking onto what you have.