It won't take long in the wild before you realize how much you've come to depend on electricity. It truly is a luxury, but one we don't want to live without. When you come face to face with the costs of producing it, you'll get more serious about conserving it.
The quickest and easiest solution is to buy a generator, perhaps even two. They're noisy and gas is expensive, so this is a short term solution, but a good thing to have on hand. The small ones (1k) are less expensive to buy and operate, but won't run things as simple as a toaster or power saw. They're also quieter, so not a bad thing to have around for the small things, but a good 5500+ watt generator will power most things you need powered. Like I said, they're noisy though, so eventually I'll come up with a way to muffle mine down. They'll cover you in a pinch, as well as in the higher wattage usages.
You'll also want to look at gas powered equipment rather than electric powered. Few buy electric powered lawn mowers, but leaf blowers, weedeaters, and chainsaws are more common in electric versions. Why power up a generator, when you can just power up the specific device.
You'll want to look at power cords that are DC powered rather than AC inverters, particularly when considering phones and radios.
Soon after getting that generator though, you're going to want a less expensive solution. If you do it efficiently, solar power can provide what you need. As I said, you'll want to conserve energy, because powering a modern home with solar would be pretty expensive, and counter productive, compared to just staying on the grid.
For the non-electrician, one can get lost in amps vs. watts vs. volts, and questions of 20 watt panels seem lost in kilowatt hours of usage. Realistically though, the batteries become the biggest cost and need replacement more often than the panels.
The good news is that if you really get down to bare bones, a small battery and 45 watts of panel will give you what you need to charge cell phones and give you light all night.
In the end, I don't know what comfortable living requires in panel wattage, but panels are rated on how many watts per hour they are capable (in optimum conditions) of producing. You'll most cetainly want a charger controller, to prevent your battery from exploding, but to get started you only need a panel and a battery, with the charger controller. Those will come with the necessary wiring. You'll run across Mono vs. Poly solar cell panels, and that is matter of size vs. cost efficiency.
A 100 watt panel, at optimum, will produce 1000 watts of energy during a 10 hour day of sunlight. The panel will cost you a few hundred dollars and the battery you charge will add a hundred or so to the cost. Put in a fuse or breaker, and run some 12 gauge wire to your cigarette ligher outlets. The Q&A on Amazon makes it appear that a lot of RVer's are satisfied with their 200 watt panel systems. Such a system should run that 150w coffee pot, but I'm not ready to swear to it. The 200 watt system seems to be the point where conservation allows a bit more energy than is required. They start coming with 30 amp controllers, and options for 24 volt systems, as opposed to 12 vDC.
It appears that a 30amp controller, which comes with the 200w system, can handle up to 360watts in a 12 volt system or 720watts in a 24v system, while a 40amp controller can up that to 520 and 1040watts, respectively. The 10 amp controller that comes with the 100 watt system meanwhile, looks to be maxed out with 120watts of panel. What this means, to me, is that if you're looking to get started with a small system and build on it, you may want to buy the pieces instead of the kit, but if you're fairly certain that you won't want to run more than those maximums, and potentially have multiple, independent systems, then you could buy a new kit for a new location/system.
A 20 watt panel will charge your phone and give you radio 24 hours a day, if you get the right radio. Stick to DC devices as much as possible.
Inverters will allow you to run 110 volt AC devices, but you need to look at how many watts they draw and how many devices you want to run, in order to know how many batteries you need to charge and how many panels it will take to run them, as well as how big the inverter needs to be.
What I recommend is using as many 12 or 24 v devices as possible. A key difference between AC and DC is how far you can run what size consumer with what sized wire from the source of power, but there are many things which are sold in DC versions for Truckers and RVer's. AC can run for miles, while DC should stick to feet. And given that solar panels are small, you can keep your power source close to your power usage.
The easiest conversion is lighting. Rather than trying to change over a lamp with an inverter from DC to AC, you can use car lighting systems. A simple side marker light draws 5 watts (15 mins of a 20 watt panel) and easily lights a 100 square foot area. Make it two lights and you have a well lit room.
Instead of installing 110 v conventional plugs, install 12 volt DC cig lighter outlets. Again, these are available through auto stores. The idea is not to try to re-invent the wheel, but rather to use what's already commonly available, DC appliances are commonly available with cig outlet plugs.
A cooler will get you by, but eventually you'll want a refrigerator. These are available (in smaller versions) from RV and Trucker supply sources. Drop by a truck stop to get some ideas, or look up an RVer store online. Amazon has an amazing suppy of many things outside of books as well. You could literally get your entire electrical supply system through them.
Still there will be areas that you need more than a sidemarker light to light up. Aside from small solar lights and spotlights, you may want things that are more "on demand." Look at fog lights for trucks and automotive, and high amp switches. I'm still testing the solar supply vs battery storage vs. energy used components of this, but I have definetly found that using a DC supplied radio works better than trying to invert it to an AC boombox.
I have found a DC 12 cup coffee pot that uses 150 watts and plugs into a cig lighter, as opposed to the normal AC version that uses 1500, but that'll burn up a full day's charge on the battery quickly. It may be more efficient to just run the generator for 15 mins. And any time you run the generator you should optimize the power, so you may want to have a battery charger plugged in to charge the solar batteries as well, or to be using that time to cut wood with the circular saw. In other words, plan your electrical needs, and plan your cuts, before you pull the cord to start the generator.
The answer is multi-faceted. Solar lighting is self-contained, but doesn't last a full winter night, while it is a great supplement to that power provided from the main battery and solar panel. The solar powered battery is unlikely to provide the power needed for spikes required of saws and other tools, but that is easily accomplished by a 5500 generator.
In the end, power from the utility company is likely more stable and cheaper, so if you're close enough, that is probably the best answer, but if you're not, you'll want to learn how to conserve what energy you do attain.
I'll come back to the subject of solar power and more of the specifics, but to give you an idea of the costs, a 5500 watt generator runs around $700 which will buy you about 400 watts of solar panel, without the batteries. Though the generator will power just about anything you need to throw at it, it'll only run about 8 hours on 5 gallons of gas (about $20 at today's prices), while the batteries for your solar will need to be replaced every few years, at a cost of about $100 each and you'll probably want to have two to four of them. If you use your solar power for minor power consumption, like lights and cell phones, and the generator for short bursts of power tools, you can have the power surge when you need it, and not pay high gas prices.
Previously: Intro: Living in the Wild
I have been looking for a DC-powered solar refrigerator for awhile now. I hope that I can find something soon that is in a great price range. I am just hoping that something soon will show up or I can find something.
Jak Manson | http://www.geinnovations.net/solarrefrigerator.html
Posted by: Jak Manson | 04/21/2014 at 08:45 PM