I have a barn about 600-800’ from my house. Previously, it was wired for electiricity, but that was long ago and it no longer works. For safety, all the wiring should be replaced. I was thinking that it might be cheaper to get a solar panal to charge a battery for lighting and small electrical needs. I wouldn’t need a lot of power, but it would certainly be nice in the winter not to have to use a flashlight, and to maybe be able to use clippers for a few minutes when grooming.
How difficult and/or feasible is this? I’m in Tennessee, so not sun-saturated, but not usually rainy every day.
Thanks for the input.
StG
This is certainly doable. I don’t know if it would be actually cheaper than just re-wiring, though.
You need to figure out your daily load in Watthours. Once you do that, you can size a panel and battery. If you really only need LED lights and occasional clipper use, you can probably get away with a panel as small as 10W. Then you need to get a battery, and charger/inverter.
beowulff - Thanks for your help. Does this look like what I’d need? it this price I could afford two of them. Plus the inverter. Is the battery just a car battery?
StG
Not a car battery. Use a deep-cycle. Do research. Stay safe.
Booker57 - I’ll find out what a deep-cycle battery is. Is it less safe then regular electricity? I want my horses to be safe.
StG
Solar is probably safer than grid-power, if only because there is less high voltage running around. Go to your local library and browse through some back issues of Home Power magazine - you’ll find everything you need to know there.
We have done this at our hunting cabin and it works famously. Send me your e-mail address and I’ll get some pictures to you.
I have done this, one issue for your plan is that lead acid batteries don’t last long when they get fully discharged (including deep cycle) and solar chargers will recharge them very slowly, leaving them deeply discharged for a long time, which will shorten their life.
For occasional use it may be cheaper to get a generator, and that would give you a lot more power also. I have a 5.5 Kw/h one for $600 which lasted so far 6 years - and shows no sign of stopping, the only additional costs from memory is what I estimate is perhaps $10 worth of oil, $100 worth of gas and perhaps a few bottles of Stable (gas stabilizer).
Compare that to a battery(s), inverter, solar panel. Also add in limited run time, battery replacement every 2 years.
kanicbird - But if I don’t use a lot of power, wouldn’t the battery stay relatively charged up? A couple light bulbs for 30 minutes or an hour or less. I like the idea of a generator because if I lost power in the house I could move it up here to run things. But the down side is that I don’t handle pull-start things well and they’re noisy. Horses spook around noisy things, at least at first.
StG