Single PV panel on my shed?

[ashthekid]

Silly question but I have a spare new 360w PV panel and am considering putting it on top of the shed to power lights inside and maybe even charge up some electric tools. 
 

Is this a silly idea or even possible?

 

What kind of cheap inverter would suffice?

[SteamyTea]

It is quite possible.

You will need a charge controller (that can handle the voltages and amps) a battery and an inverter to run anything that is 230V. There are two types of inverters for this, full sine wave, not full sine wave. You probably need the former.

 

Probably going to cost you 500 quid.

 

[ashthekid]

You think that will be cheapest setup?

[TonyT]

I bought a cheap 600 watt inverter from eBay and connected it to a spare 250 watt panel.

inverter lives in an IP box, it

comes with a plug and this is plugged into a power meter

Excluding panel think it was under £100

[ProDave]

I bought probably the same 600W inverter from ebay, mine is grid tied so the shed panel is not a one trick pony it adds to the house power if nothing in the shed is using it.

 

Beware those cheap Chinese inverters are not built very well. Mine failed in less than a year, inspection showed 2 of the transistors forming the H bridge short circuit.  I replaced them and it works again.  What I noticed was very little heat sink compound on any of the transistors, before the case used to run cool.  Now it is re assembled with plenty of heat sink compound the case runs warm when it is working hard showing it is now actually working as a heatsink and 3 years later it is still working.

[PeterW]

El Cheapo leisure battery is £50 Here

 

Charge Controller is £8 Here

 

500w inverter is £20 Here

 

That’s enough for a battery charger and some LED lights, bits of wire and battery clamps to connect it together and you’re done for £100.

 

 

[Radian]

On 24/05/2023 at 12:20, ashthekid said:

360w PV panel

Will be optimally matched when it's output is somewhere between 30 and 40 Volts (check the datasheet). A 12V charge controller/battery/inverter will not be a good match so you won't see anything like the full 360W. Do you need a battery and to be off-grid? Some cheapy grid tied inverters are suitable for connection to 40V inputs so will provide the best power - but you'd need to have 240VAC already in the shed. If you want it off-grid, a better choice would be to get a 24V charge controller and inverter and use a couple of 12V batteries in series.