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Alternative Energy Shed
March 28, 2009
We live near Canyon, Texas, just south of Amarillo. When people in other parts of the world think of Texas, they naturally think of it as a typically warm/hot place.
Amarillo, however, although very flat being in the high planes, is actually 3800 feet above sea level. Because of the high altitude and the proximity of the Rocky Mountains, less than a day's drive away, we can get very cold winters.
Shelly and I live in a single wide mobile home on land that we own. The land is not very big, but it's ours. The yard is surrounded by a wooden fence, and we have a shed which is not wired to the electric grid. As an experiment and for hobby purposes, I decided to experiment with alternative energy. This shed now has 110 volts of electricity, as well as a 12 volt lighting system, all powered by alternative energy.
The photo below was taken on March 27, 2009, in a lull of an ongoing blizzard. The colored Christmas lights were put up the day before the blizzard arrived, since we didn't have any snow on Christmas. All of the external lights in this photo are powered by wind and solar energy!  Inside the shed is a sealed 180 pound deep cycle battery. The battery is trickle charged via a 60 watt solar panel kit from HomeDepot.com. Added to this is a small 10 watt vertical access wind turbine (V.A.W.T.) purchased with Paypal online from Four Seasons Windpower.
Would you like to see more photos of our "off grid" powered shed? Click here!
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The small turbine contributes to the trickle charge of the battery whenever the wind is blowing strongly enough, which around here is fairly often.
Attached to the battery is a 2500 watt inverter which converts 12 volt DC power from the battery to 110 volt AC power for running power tools. Originally, I put in a 110 volt lighting system inside the shed also running from this inverter, and a flood light in the yard that lights up the house at night. But I found out that the inverter burns electricity just being turned on, even if no appliances that are hooked to it are turned on.
To solve this battery drain, I rewired the internal lighting system in the shed and put in a 12 volt LED lighting system. I also purchased 100 feet of 12 volt LED Christmas lights for lighting the outside next Christmas and additionally replaced the 110 volt flood light with a 12 volt florescent flood light hooked to a 12 volt sensor that turns on the flood light at sunset.
The result is that during the daytime I don't have to disconnect the inverter, because unless I'm using power tools, I leave it disconnected, and there is no drain on the battery. At night, anytime I want, when I go into the shed, I just flick on the lights and it is flooded with lights from my three very bright 12 volt LED light bulbs. The outside of the house is lit with a 12 volt flood light. And all powered by wind and solar energy.
This is the main system, but independent of the main 12 volt alternative energy system, I have also installed 24 solar powered accent lights which I purchased from Walgreens (at a price of $20 for six). These accent lights were mounted with brackets and screwed along the fence line. There is also a solar powered flood light in the drive way with a motion detector, that runs independently from the main system, and can be purchased from Lowes and Wal-mart.
Knowing that a major snow storm was blowing in from Denver, I decided to take the oportunity to string up my 12 volt Christmas lights. I did this to test the sustainability of the system.
I ran the lights for 13 hours, from 7PM March 27, 2009, to 8AM March 28, 2009. Then I checked the battery and it was fully charged, undoubtably helped by the strong winds during the snow storm. This indicates to me that I can run all of my external Christmas lights next year via solar and wind energy.
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