Shed Electrics

Wanting power in the winter from solar is a poor mix, I'd just chuck an old car battery in the corner for 12V lighting ...

What line of sight do you have to the sun (bearing in mind it'll be low in the south in midwinter)? How much roof area do you have?

It's better to do the calcs, but a vague rule of thumb is you get 10% of the panel output in the winter. So if you put up a 400W panel (2m x 1m) you might get 40W output. Days are short in winter too, and often cloudy. Batteries don't like the cold either. Things are much better in autumn and spring.

Depends how low wattage your dehumidifier is, but even the little Peltier PC fan ones are about 30W (and pretty useless), so budget on running that during sunny periods only. As for boiling a kettle, don't plan on having many cups of tea per week. Lighting would likely be doable.

Wind turbine: do you live on an exposed windy site? If so then you might be able to have some generation, but if you live in suburbia then the environment is too cluttered for it to work. Higher is better - if there are tall trees you might need to get it above the trees.

For the money you might spend, I'd think very hard about spending it on laying a duct for cable instead. Then you'd have as much power as you need.

Theo

At only 200' I would just run a SWA and take mains out there. Probably less hassle and much cheaper.

However if you want "off grid", then you might be better with one of the prebuilt "battery in a box" systems. They include an inverter and the capability to charge from solar as well in most cases. In the winter you can bring it "home" for a recharge, and solar may be able to trickle it for intermittent use in the winter.

e.g some of many.

I didn't explain the main reason why cable is out of the question is that I don't own the land in between my house and my shed-to-be. With good neighbours it might not be an issue but here I am not wanting to even broach the subject to be honest. TW

ok, fairy snuff... :-)

In which case, options as above...

(note there are cheaper units with outputs in the 1kW range, if you can live without the capability to drive an electric kettle - say going for a camping gas hob etc)

Some of the 'portable power stations' have an input for solar panels. So you could for example attach one or two panels to your roof, and have the panels keep the power pack topped up when they're able. Then you'd only need to haul it home and charge it in winter when the panels aren't generating enough. I'd go for 'normal' solar panels not 12v camping ones which are too puny. Example supplier:

Theo

I had a browse for those portable power source batteries. That sounds like an ideal solution. Thanks to you both. TW

They can also be annoyingly noisy especially if badly installed on something that acts as a sounding board.

... and skip the electric kettle in favor of a gas camping type.

this type:

Thomas Prufer