lorihadams
Always doing laundry
Would it be cost effective to install a small solar setup on our shed to run our 2 chest freezers?
solar for running freezers
- Thread starter lorihadams
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k0xxx
Mr. Sunshine
I honestly doubt it. Freezers can be energy hogs, and draw a fairly high surge current when the compressor starts. I would bet (bet, because I don't actually know) that it would not be cost effective to install a system just to run them.
They do make extremely energy efficient refrigerators and freezers (Sundanzer comes to mind) that are made to operate on solar, but they are pretty expensive on a square foot basis.
They do make extremely energy efficient refrigerators and freezers (Sundanzer comes to mind) that are made to operate on solar, but they are pretty expensive on a square foot basis.
Icu4dzs
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An article in the Countryside and Small Stock Journal this month was written by a guy who set up a small solar rig to run his welder in the shop.
The article is VERY informative. He details how much and what he used. He theorizes the need for about $2000 or less to do this.
He used a 175 watt solar panel (only one) and a 2500 watt inverter along with eight 225 AMP/HR batteries. (I think he said deep cycle marine but not sure at the moment)
His calculations went this way:
two sets of four batteries: at 225 amp hours wired together gives 450 AMP hours x 24 volts (6 volt batteries), yields
Watts = 24 v x 450 AMP
or 10,800 watts (10.8 kWh)
After calculating the amount of electricity used by the welder he concluded that he only used a very small amount of the available power (used 1.2kWh to build a cart for his welder.)
Now a freezer is somewhat different and as K0xxx mentions, it is the surge that the freezer requires that can be a "rate limiting step" however, if the freezer is NOT opened regularly, IS an efficient freezer and kept full of frozen foods, the "cost efficiency" is sometimes over cast by the peace of mind afforded knowing your valuable food is protected from the vagaries of the grid (particularly if something should go wrong!)
So in order to answer your question adequately, you might give a little more information to the forum here and then if you find a small system is worth the effort, I'd say go for it.
My system is a hybrid system. I have 16 PV (170 watts) and a 3200 watt wind turbine with a 6000 watt inverter. I calculate that I can produce (in the best of situations) about 43 kWh per day as long as the sun shines and the wind blows.
Since the inverter is the rate limiting step, you might want to look into the cost of that first once you have determined what your freezer's surge requirement is for starting it.
Then you can determine the "cost effectiveness" for yourself.
Hope this helps.
Trim sends
The article is VERY informative. He details how much and what he used. He theorizes the need for about $2000 or less to do this.
He used a 175 watt solar panel (only one) and a 2500 watt inverter along with eight 225 AMP/HR batteries. (I think he said deep cycle marine but not sure at the moment)
His calculations went this way:
two sets of four batteries: at 225 amp hours wired together gives 450 AMP hours x 24 volts (6 volt batteries), yields
Watts = 24 v x 450 AMP
or 10,800 watts (10.8 kWh)
After calculating the amount of electricity used by the welder he concluded that he only used a very small amount of the available power (used 1.2kWh to build a cart for his welder.)
Now a freezer is somewhat different and as K0xxx mentions, it is the surge that the freezer requires that can be a "rate limiting step" however, if the freezer is NOT opened regularly, IS an efficient freezer and kept full of frozen foods, the "cost efficiency" is sometimes over cast by the peace of mind afforded knowing your valuable food is protected from the vagaries of the grid (particularly if something should go wrong!)
So in order to answer your question adequately, you might give a little more information to the forum here and then if you find a small system is worth the effort, I'd say go for it.
My system is a hybrid system. I have 16 PV (170 watts) and a 3200 watt wind turbine with a 6000 watt inverter. I calculate that I can produce (in the best of situations) about 43 kWh per day as long as the sun shines and the wind blows.
Since the inverter is the rate limiting step, you might want to look into the cost of that first once you have determined what your freezer's surge requirement is for starting it.
Then you can determine the "cost effectiveness" for yourself.
Hope this helps.
Trim sends
patandchickens
Crazy Cat Lady
It depends on what costs you are wanting them to be effective against.
If it is the kWh cost of running your freezer off the grid, it would probably take you considerably longer than your lifetime (or the lifetime of the solar panel components
) to pay back what you invested setting up the system. So no, not cost-effective in that way.
If however you are comparing against the cost (financial or practical) of, say, losing all your stored food in a prolonged power failure, then there is a lot more to be said for putting a big bundle of money (cuz that's what it'd take) into setting up your freezers to run off solar rather than the grid. (Although for normal outages, a generator would be more cost-effective and versatile. So it depends on whether you are preparing just for normal vicissitudes of life, or for Actual Collapse Of Civilization type thing)
Good luck, have fun,
Pat
If it is the kWh cost of running your freezer off the grid, it would probably take you considerably longer than your lifetime (or the lifetime of the solar panel components
) to pay back what you invested setting up the system. So no, not cost-effective in that way.If however you are comparing against the cost (financial or practical) of, say, losing all your stored food in a prolonged power failure, then there is a lot more to be said for putting a big bundle of money (cuz that's what it'd take) into setting up your freezers to run off solar rather than the grid. (Although for normal outages, a generator would be more cost-effective and versatile. So it depends on whether you are preparing just for normal vicissitudes of life, or for Actual Collapse Of Civilization type thing
)Good luck, have fun,
Pat
Mackay
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These technologies are still very expensive and the best reason to do such things in my opinion, unless you are rich, is to be prepared for energy outages.
My new Fridiaire chest freezer costs $38 a year to run, maybe less cause we only pay 7.5 cents per kwh, most places are now 11 cents or up.
If you want to save money and if your climate is cold enough move your freezer outside in the winter.
My new Fridiaire chest freezer costs $38 a year to run, maybe less cause we only pay 7.5 cents per kwh, most places are now 11 cents or up.
If you want to save money and if your climate is cold enough move your freezer outside in the winter.
Niele da Kine
Power Conserver
Well, find out how much power the two chest freezers use, figure out what size of system would run them and then do the math. Depending on how much you pay for electricity, it may or may not be cost effective. Freezers only run for a portion of the time, so if you had a Kill-a-watt meter or some way of monitoring how much power the freezers actually use it would be best. We run a small chest freezer and a refrigerator on our system, but it also powers the rest of the house. It's eight 150-175 watt panels, a charge controller and an inverter along with miscellaneous wires and such. You also need to look up how much solar you get at your latitude.lorihadams said:
