I went to the battery store in Kingston. Turns out that the 12 volt (PW-PL-17C 12v 50 AH batteries are on sale for $40 each and they also have marine battery boxes so I got one of them too. Total cost today was $62.09.
Also… turns out that the solar panel I bought is not at all sufficient to keep the tiny fridge going. Apparently cooling (and heating) is very expensive to do. But they did tell me that this is lots and lots of solar to run LED Lights and recharge my phone and computer (too much in fact) so this is some good news to sooth the bad. Since I have lots of extra power, maybe I can run a 6 volt fan when it is hot next year? Turns out that I would need about 6 solar arrays of the size I have as well as 6 large batteries to keep the little fridge running. Brutal! Maybe the Lottery God will answer my call?
The people at the store where I went, Impact, were amazingly nice to me. Super helpful and when I told the guy what I just heard was wawawawawa he roared laughing. I liked that. He also explained things in a way that I could understand which was awesome!
Anyway, now I just have to talk nice to someone with a car so that I can get the darned battery home. It will not fit on Baby no matter how much I wiggle and whine.
I also learned something very interesting. Did you know that you cannot get any LED lights that are CAA approved and designed for off grid use?
They told me about a website superbrightleds.com where you can order LED lights. It is out of Prescott, Ontario and they say that they have had good luck with them.
Have you thought of a micro-wind tower…. mind you – I still think you would need batteries for this. I do have a friend who hooked up his solar panels to the grid and sells the electricity to them. He ends up making money – and has a fridge…..