Six months of running my shop on pure solar battery backup changed my whole outlook

I finally switched my home gym's lighting and fan system to a 24V solar panel setup I pieced together for about $400. Before this, every time the power flickered during a session, I'd just pack it up early. Now I've got 4 deep cycle batteries hooked up and they kept the lights on through a 3 hour outage last Tuesday. Anyone else run a small business off grid like this and notice a big drop in your electric bill?

3 comments

3 Comments

emmam891mo ago

Oh come on, is it really that much of a game changer? I mean sure, keeping the lights on during a 3 hour outage is nice but how often does your power actually go out for that long? Around here we get a flicker maybe twice a year and it lasts 10 minutes tops. And $400 for a setup that just runs a few lights and a fan seems like a lot of money to save maybe five bucks a month on your bill. How long before you actually break even on that thing?

taraross1mo ago

@emmam89 My neighbor spent $600 on a generator just to run his Christmas lights for two weeks straight.

wendy8201mo ago

Ugh, tell me about it. My brother in law dropped like $500 on a whole home backup just for one bad storm a year. Meanwhile I've lived here for eight years and my power has blinked off maybe three times total, and it was back on before I could even find a flashlight. I get the peace of mind argument but for most people it's just a very expensive hobby. That payoff timeline is hilarious, you'd probably lose the unit to old age before you saw any real savings on your bill.