Solar power for shed - confused!

Cerilee

Hi,

Newbie posting here! Been a great 'lurker' on this site for ages but now have a question I hope you can help me with.

I have a shed in our garden which is insulated and watertight.

We want to put a shed, a few lights and charge phones etc from it, possibly even run a small heater. We really want to do this with solar power as a little experiment before we put solar on the house.

But I am confused with talk of inverters, voltages, connections etc!

Can someone, in layman terms, please tell me whether you have done a similar project and what I would need (alongside the cheapest way of doing it!)

Thank you

Andy_WSM

Forget heaters for a starter. No small shed system is going to be capable of running a heater.

You'd probably be better off asking this question in a specialist forum. I use this one: http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/

You'd need solar panels (biggest you can physically fit on the available roof space).
A mounting system for them.
Batteries.
Charge controller.
An inverter.

This sort of project and cheap cannot usually be used in the same sentence.

macman

Completely uneconomic-the only way you'll ever make money from solar PV is by hooking up to the grid and getting FITs.
How many solar panels can you get on a shed roof? Not more than one...

[Deleted User]

I ve seen many instances where people have bunged up half a dozen panels and more on sheds and garages. Ebay bought second hand panels probably but they were all add-ons to the main 16 panels on the roofs. Maybe increasing their F.I.T in a sneaky way. The last one I saw even had a backward running main meter but it was an Npower supplied property so little chance of getting caught.

MoneyMate

Better off putting a Safe Power supply out there
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=outdoor+cable&!!!!!googhydr-21&index=aps&hvadid=28639960260&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2117591474551617677&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_73q2rncbz2_b
And Welcome to MSE

Cerilee

Thank you everyone.

I did not realise there was a dedicated thread to solar until I got in from work yesterday and had a browse!

We already have the safe outdoor sockets and cabling in but I was looking at trying to save the planet as we went along - but you are right, well out of the budget! I'd never get that cost back. Cash is king after all!

Since we are using it for a bar by the time we have been in there for a couple of drinks I doubt we'd care about much anyway! :rotfl:

I love this forum, thank you.