© Solar Station
It’s a tiny power plant for a tiny home! This forthcoming ebook promises to help you build a standalone solar power station for hyperlocal clean energy generation.
Home solar power is rapidly becoming a reality for many, thanks to great financial incentives, creative financing options, and increasingly affordable components, and the coming solar revolution shows no signs of slowing down. But you don’t necessarily have to invest in a whole-house grid-tied solar array to take advantage of clean energy, and you may not even want to if you’re looking to electrify an off-grid location or build an emergency power supply.
One potential option for the DIY crowd is to build your own standalone solar energysystem, complete with battery storage, which can power a tiny home, act as a backyard power station, or serve as a small step toward energy independence.
Ben Peterson, who we covered some years ago about his DIY wood gasifier, has a new project in the works, and this time he’s focused on spreading the word about his “fast, simple, & scalable” solution for solar power. Peterson has built a couple of versions of his standalone solar plus battery storage units, which he calls the Solar Station Lander, and has a crowdfunding campaign intended to bring this solar solution to a wider audience, both as a plug-and-play unit and as a DIY instruction manual.
“At Solar Station we think the future is fun. Small living is awesome, so we wanted to show our support for the community by designing a really fun and simple solar solution that will let tiny dwellers enjoy more power, more space and greater peace of mind.” – Ben Peterson, Solar Station founder.
Peterson’s campaign is offering complete versions of the Solar Station Lander, a 600 W solar generator, complete with a 2000 W inverter and six 84 AH batteries (total 504 AH) for energy storage, built into a 4′ x 6′ (1.2 x 1.8 meter) shed that can double as storage space, for $6800. He’s also hard at work on a third version, which will incorporate 2000 W of solar and a 3000 W inverter, plus a higher capacity battery storage system, is said to be “for homes and vehicle charging,” but there’s no indication yet of what the price of those units will be.
For the rest of us, those who aren’t ready or willing to shell out $6800 for a complete plug-and-play unit, Peterson is offering his expertise in an ebook of DIY plans. The digital book features “detailed DIY construction plans to build your own solar station,” complete with parts list, photos, and additional commentary on building your own solar solution. Backers of the Indiegogo campaign at the $25 level will receive the digital plans (schools and nonprofits can get it for $20), and contributions at the $45 level include a downloadable video of the Solar Station building workshop.