Solar Lighting

The Origins of the Solar Shed

It is a well documented fact of history that everything of any significance has been invented, developed and otherwise cooked up in a shed (or garage or similar outbuilding – the word “shed” is used here to cover the full range of such structures). The television, more novels than anyone will ever read, HP and Apple computers, the sports bra (apparently), Ikea the solar powered fridge (we’ll come back to this last one, for reasons that will soon become clear) and no less than three (and arguably four) of the Seven Wonders of the World. All have their origins in someone’s shed.

The typical shed (I’m going to stop adding “or garage or similar outbuilding” from here on, I’m sure you’ve got the idea already) has a number of defining characteristics. Chief amongst these is that a shed is a garden building that is not a primary residence.

Most dictionaries incorporate something along these lines “A shed is generally a modest, single-storey structure, usually constructed of wood in a back garden or on an allotment, used for storage and as a workshop and very often as a retreat in which to relax and pursue hobbies, especially gardening and light engineering.” to define a shed.

The sharp eyed will note in the above definition for the humble shed the expression “pursue hobbies” and therein lies the clue to the power of the shed. It is an infinitely flexible shelter for all manner of human endeavours, and so we have the regular wooden garden shed, the storage shed, the tool shed, the potting shed, the bike shed, the writing shed, the summer shed (or summerhouse as those who own one rather snobbily insist), the swimming pool shed, the Roman Temple shed, the cow shed (for those who keep cows), the milking shed (for milking said cows), the pub shed and so the list goes on with a recent entrant in these times of concern about CO2 footprints and renewable energy – the solar shed.

The Benefits of a Solar Powered Shed

So what’s a Solar Shed you ask? Well, it’s whatever type of garden shed you had before but with power, or more precisely, free solar power. The point about sheds is that because they are most emphatically not true residential dwellings they are typically fairly inexpensive and easy to site in whatever location happens to suit, and without the attendant aggravation of complying with building regulations and health and safety legislation and every other creeping blight on your ability to exercise freedom and apply common sense.

That is, of course, until you want to add some power to your (usually wooden) garden shed. Then you have a problem.

The traditional way to supply power to a garden shed has always been to run a cable from the main house. This entails the cost of the cables and assorted connecting boxes and switches, plus the hassle involved in connecting things up, preferably so that the whole rigmarole is safe and will neither set fire to the shed nor electrocute anyone innocently digging in the flowerbeds.

That’s before Jo Busybody turns up with a clipboard mounted checklist. You have an electrical installation certificate to verify the work is up to the required standard? Not unless you’re a qualified electrician you don’t – and do you have any idea how much those guys charge even to wire up a plug to a kettle?

Of course you could just ignore the overblown regulations and carry on doing it yourself, but don’t expect your insurance company to cough up the day you need to claim for anything (such as torching your own shed or frying the gardener). Insurers will look for any way out they can find and evidence of a dodgy homeowner electrical installation provides one of the cleanest exit routes available, leaving the hapless homeowner (that would be you) without valid insurance and significantly out of pocket.

But there is another way. The Solar Shed. Or more accurately a solar powered shed, since this is really nothing more than your old, regular, plain vanilla garden shed kitted out with a few solar power panels – or PV (photovoltaic) cells as they’re technically termed. Lets face it, what else were you planning on using two slabs of plywood covered in roofing felt for that trumps providing endlessly free power for some solar shed lights?

The great thing about solar panels is that, just like wooden garden sheds, they can be located pretty much anywhere (that gets some sunlight, obviously) and again, as with pretty well all garden buildings, they’re not subject to the strictures of Nanny Regulation.

So what exactly are the benefits of a solar powered shed? The main point to make is that solar power for a shed is a completely different ball game to full domestic solar power. You’re not attempting to use solar panels to power the significant loads that the typical modern domestic infrastructure demands, with cooking, laundry, massive amounts of lighting, possibly also heating, and all those other electrical appliances and electronic devices scattered round the average home these days. Most solar lighting kits for example are exempt from UK Building Regulations Part P which restricts ordinary householders from carrying out most electrical work, so you can tinker with them to your hearts content.

Advice On Building Your Own Solar Panels

However, a word of advice about DIY solar power projects… Yes, it’s great fun messing about with small scale solar applications in your garden and a great way to learn about this technology without getting burned (literally or metaphorically). However, sooner or later in your quest for information about this subject you’re going to come across those “build your own solar panel” sales pitches (among the usual suspects are Earth4Energy, HomemadeEnergy, Citizenre, Power4Home, Earth 4 Electricity, Free Energy Options and GreenDIYenergy).

These scoundrels will try and sell you information that a) can be had for free on the internet if you bother to look and b) is fundamentally flawed. Most self-build solar panels don’t work anywhere near as well as professionally installed ones, don’t usually last very long, and can in fact be downright dangerous.

The big killer however is that they will NOT comply with the certification requirements necessary to obtain tax rebates and other incentives (in the UK for example a self built solar power supply will specifically fail the Buiding Regulations Part P). The corrollary to this is that you can then expect your insurance company to invalidate your household insurance and since you will also be unable to comply with building and electrical codes you can forget hooking them up to the grid, which after all is how many people ain to help recoup their investment.

No electric utility company in the land will connect a grid-tie inverter to a DIY solar panel and you certainly can’t do this yourself, which means you can forget asking for a Feed In Tarrif so you can get paid for the surplus energy you generate at off-peak hours (typically during the day when the sun is most powerful and there’s less need to power lights and heat).

As already noted, this has little to do with small scale solar projects for garden outbuildings and if you’re genuinely interested in learning more about adopting solar power for your own home then this well run and informative solar power forum is great place to start.

Solar Shed Lighting

The solar shed is mainly about providing lighting ample for the task in hand, which can encompass potting up seedlings through to watching football on the shed telly while swigging cold beer from the shed fridge, and pretty much all other variants of “doing stuff” in between.

For solar shed lighting you don’t need vast bristling banks of solar panels electronically controlled to follow the sun. A simple solar lighting kit or two will suffice and require a lot less surface area than already sits, completely unused, on the shed roof. The world and the web are awash with low cost solar lighting kits and even purpose built solar shed lights for those who don’t want to play around with separate solar lighting components.

Typically, solar shed lights are supplied as ready to go kits, comprising a modern thin-film cell that recharges a set of NiMh rechargeable batteries that in turn provide around six hours of power for the solar shed light itself, which these days is absolutely guaranteed to be a super bright LED array easily capable of illuminating 10 square metres. And the cost for solar shed lights similar to this simple specification? Less than 20 Euros – and they’ll even throw in a remote control and an automatic switch-off feature. The solar panel(s) can connect to as many solar shed lights as you require (though one is sufficient for most ordinary purposes) and come supplied with 3 metres of cable which is usually enough to be able to locate the solar panels facing a suitably sunny aspect.

There are many solar light kits to choose from – among the most popular in the UK are the Solar Mate series, which ranges from the basic Solar Mate Point 5 which uses a super-bright LED array capable of lighting a 10′ by 10′ shed for 3 hours each evening, to the impressive Solar Mate V which can power 6 fluorescent strip lights and illuminate an area of 60 square meters for 8 hours at a time.

Solar Shed Heating

But there is more to the solar shed than simply solar LED lighting. How about some solar shed heating, either for the purpose of keeping seedlings and such like warm, or for keeping the chill off the modern shed dweller. Clearly, full blown central heating in a shed is not on offer here but with a powerful enough solar power kit there’s no reason not to power a small electric heater. After all, the electricity is free and the batteries will be recharged the next day whether you use the electricity or not, so you might as well; there’s also no shortage of reasonably priced 12v fan heaters available (they’re usually marketed for use in cars and motor homes etc).

If you want to try something a little more adventurous then you could experiment with solar thermal heat panels. These use energy from the sun to heat water which is then passed to radiators or under floor heating pipes and/or a collector tank to store the hot (yes, not warm, but actually very hot) water. They are incredibly effective and can quite easily heat water to boiling temperature even if the outside temperature isn’t that warm. You can either buy these, or if you’re up for a spot of DIY make them – old fridge coils are ideal as this excellent article that explains how to build your own solar thermal panel reveals.

Regardless of how you plan to heat your shed though, the best thing you can do is insulate it. Most sheds are full of gaps, have thermally useless single-glazed windows and the walls and roof are just the thickness of the wood. If possible replace the windows or at least add a secondary layer to trap heat in the gap. Where the walls, floor and roof are concerned you can install insulation bats between the battens; for a more finished look simply board over the top of the insulation. A great choice of material is Thermafleece which comes in regularly sized slabs; there is also Thermafleece PB20 which is supplied in roll form – check here for a detailed comparison and further information about Thermafleece. It’s a highly effective insulator material and completely safe as it’s made from sheep’s wool. It’s specifically ideal for garden outbuildings because it is, as the manufacturer puts it, “the first choice when maximum thermal and acoustic performance and breathability are required or in space limited situations”. In other words it works brilliantly, helps cut out noise, tolerates extremes of humidity, won’t make you itch or wheeze and is suited to small areas – such as, erm, a shed.

The Shed As A Solar Collector

Thus far we’ve focussed on solar power for the shed, but there is another way of looking at solar power and sheds, and that is using the shed as a convenient solar collection station to provide power and/or heat for your home. A great thing about sheds is that, unlike your house, you can position them so they’re in the optimum position to collect sunlight and/or out of view. And if you don’t have a shed, well they’re fairly cheap and easy to install.

As this wonderfully detailed journal “Using Solar Collectors Mounted on an Outbuilding for House Heating” outlines, you can offload all the paraphernalia necessary to run a full scale domestic solar power and heating system onto your nearby shed. The advantages are considerable since you’re effectively installing you own power plant in a position that best suits you.

Beyond The Solar Shed

But why stop at solar shed lighting and heating? One of the convenient things about most solar power kits (and especially as far as the solar shed owner is concerned) is that solar panels are typically designed to output electricity as 12v DC which is ideal for charging storage batteries and for powering and/or recharging low voltage i.e. 12v devices of all types, in other words most portable electrical tools and electronic devices (which technically speaking, is exactly what LED solar shed lights are anyway). Need somewhere to grow plants in a controlled environment? Fit your shed out with LED grow lights.

So, now you can see what you’re doing thanks to your solar shed lights, you’re nice and warm, the portable 12v TV is on, your laptop is on permanent trickle charge and hooked up online via your home wireless network which is also monitoring your solar CCTV security system, the mini-fridge is chilling your choice of refreshments. And day after day, this setup will cost nothing to run, causes no oil, coal or gas to be burned, and emits no CO2. It’s hard to see what’s not to like about solar shed lights and their myriad spin-offs.

Only one question remains. What exactly are YOU going to come up with in there? And if you had been thinking of inventing solar garden lighting don’t bother – it’s been done already.