Pole Barn Solution Suitable for Cold Weather (MN)
- Thread starter tbarkermn
- Start date
I have a solar-powered motion sensor light on the top of my MN cabin for 3 years and it has worked great. This year I found the small solar cell laying on the ground when I got here 2 months ago. It had broken off its mount, I just set it on the roof and it has been fine. it is there mostly to give the appearance that there is someone there and it lights the path to the outhouse.
teal95
Solar Enthusiast
Right there with you. I'm in southern MI so not quite as cold but it's still a concern. My only loads are occasional lighting and trickle chargers for the car batteries. Being as I can control the trickle chargers to only run when I have solar power the batteries only need to power the lights when I'm in there. I am thinking that I could also use spare power for a 12v compressor with a large air tank for inflating tires.
Risky Rob
Solar Enthusiast
Some solar charge controllers have dc load terminals that are great for lighting. The advantage is that you don't need an expensive inverter. You could start with a few lead acid batteries, which charge and discharge well in cold temperatures and a big string of lights throughout the barn.
teal95
Solar Enthusiast
This will be my third build. The first is 3x 350w panels with a Renogy controller feeding 48v or FLA batts and a 2kw invertor. I use it for charging a 48v golf cart. It pulls about 1100w to start and then tails off so I can only charge it when the sun is shining. As long as I start charging before noon it always gets the golf cart charged and tops the battery bank back up before the sun sets.
The second setup is a couple of used 250w panels facing SW and SE feeding a single FLA batt running a 12v water pump in a greenhouse. I have a 100 gallon tank on the ground filled with a hand pump and the 12v pump pumps the water up through 200' of hose snaked up the north wall filling a 50 gallon tank mounted as close to the roof as I could get it. The idea is to be able to use the upper tank to water the greenhouse and thermally moderate the greenhouse.
The second setup is a couple of used 250w panels facing SW and SE feeding a single FLA batt running a 12v water pump in a greenhouse. I have a 100 gallon tank on the ground filled with a hand pump and the 12v pump pumps the water up through 200' of hose snaked up the north wall filling a 50 gallon tank mounted as close to the roof as I could get it. The idea is to be able to use the upper tank to water the greenhouse and thermally moderate the greenhouse.
Risky Rob
Solar Enthusiast
Very interesting applications. I am going to try to pump water from a deep well. The pump is a submerged 3-wire 230V 1/2 hp, and I have a 4000W split phase LF inverter. My goal is, in a grid failure, to pump water, once daily, to a surface tank.
teal95
Solar Enthusiast
When the water was high this spring the pond was lapping almost up to the greenhouse. It's now about 2' down, so the water table is still plenty high for a shallow pump. And being as I'm not using it for potable water I'm not really worried about the quality, although I should probably get it tested, just in case SHTF.
I am doing the same thing and I am also in Michigan I built a box put the battery solar charge controller inverter inside it I was going to throw some 2-in foam insulation panels on top of the box and I have currently a 100 W solar panel in which I was going to run a 12 volt timer that breaks the power to the inverter at night turn back on during the day when solar is coming in to run five trickle chargers that only pull four watts each to charge batteries in toys this system is sitting on a pallet outside I'm getting ready for this coming winter and trying to figure out a solution to keeping the Box warm I'm currently using a car battery to test functionality and it's working great I thought of running an additional timer or starting a timer sooner before solar starts coming in that turns on a 100watt bulb or 60watt bulb to produce heat inside there to qarb the Batt... I am currently in the market of trying to decide an AGM or lead acid battery which I need help on, to handle the cold it's for my property up north that will stay outside year round for the weekend getaways. I see people using heating pads and stuff but an old trick back in the day to keep your pipes warm and cold weather just turn on a light bulb non LED
how about a couple 12v RV "tank heaters" under the batteries placed in a very well insulated enclosure?
Risky Rob
Solar Enthusiast
Is it necessary to heat a lead acid battery? A fully charged (lead acid) battery will freeze at -94 degrees below zero! (-70 °C)!
If you have any level of current draw, yes. IIRC it starts to be a problem around 0°F for anything over ~0.02C. Mainly you just lose capacity, but you can fail a cell if it is bad enough.
Risky Rob
Solar Enthusiast
It might be hard to start an engine when a lead acid battery is cold, but wouldn't lights come on? I wouldn't worry right away.
I was thinking that the capacity gains including the heating pad load would still make lifepo4 a better choice than lead acid. i'm willing to bet one heating pad would work to keep a fairly large bank warm enough if the enclosure is well-insulated.
We used to have UPSs fail (multi-MW) with low temperatures. The battery rooms were continuously ventilated at stupidly high rates which eventually brought them down to near outside air temperature. It is a combination of the low temperature and initiating the chemical reaction if I recall correctly-- it is harder to switch load to it than to maintain some consistent output. I don't know how much load variability plays a role.
What batt setup did u do.. I'm bout to pull trigger on a setup to do the trickle charging as well
I plan on doing the same type of setup but to charge my five ATV batteries throughout the winter and year-round why exactly did you go 48 volt versus 24 volt what type of batteries did you do 6 Volt or 12 volts golf cart batteries?
teal95
Solar Enthusiast
I have a couple of SLA sitting on the shelf but haven't assembled or installed anything yet. Instead I added a 10' wide lean to on the barn. I've started doing some layout and found out what I was supplied with for roof mounts won't work. Roof peak runs N-S so I need to tilt mount the panels, not flat.
