Solar lighting
One of the easiest ways to incorporate solar energy into your garden is by replacing your garden lights with solar-powered ones. Solar lights do not need to be connected to the grid, so not only do they light up your garden in a more sustainable and low-cost way, but they also help avoid the eye-sore of trailing wires. With no wiring comes mobility: you can place the lights wherever you want, as long sunlight gets to them!
Solar lighting is also often softer, and less disruptive to nocturnal animals. Harsh lighting on all night can disrupt the sleep patterns of wildlife, making them exhausted and stressed. Wild animals use the daily rhythms of light and dark to tell them a lot about the time of year as well as time of day. If they are tricked into thinking the days are still long they may not be feeding up enough for a long migration or ready for hibernation.
Install solar panels on your garden shed
If you want to save even more energy you can look at installing solar panels on your garden shed. Compared with installing solar lights, the process is a bit more complex and you will need to do some research first, but it is manageable.
Apart from lighting the shed, the energy will be enough for short-term use of your electrical devices such as a radio or television. A fridge can also be connected to the solar power system.
Place the solar panels on the roof of your garden shed to get the most sunlight. Consult an expert to find out what voltage will work for you, which will depend on your needs. In order to determine which and how many solar panels you need, you can add up the individual consumption of all the devices. Apart from the required voltage and watt consumption, you should also take into account daily usage time.
In addition to the solar panels themselves, you should also purchase a solar charge controller. Choose carefully, as it performs a very important function - regulating the power supply. The energy can be directly transported into the national grid and passed on to your electric devices. But you can also install a solar power storage system. This will allow you to store solar energy and use it later, which is the perfect solution for cloudy days. Your charge controller will avoid overcharging the battery.
Replace equipment with solar-powered ones
Almost every electronic device can be replaced with a solar one. For instance, one of the greatest energy guzzlers, the oven, can be replaced with a parabolic solar cooker. With its help, the sun rays are reflected onto a focal point, which causes high temperatures.
Even some garden decorations can be solar, for example, a solar-powered fountain.
About the author: Kimberley Cornish is a blog author at Summerhouse24
His greatest passions are gardening and building and he feels fortunate to write on these topics for a wide audience. Kimberley is enthusiastic about energy efficiency and gladly shares his knowledge about this topic.