Ive seen something similar gangzoom they are pretty cool and if you tie it into your home grid the electricity company will buy the excess electric you produce back off you, but as you mentioned a costly initial outlay!!
This is truly amazing dude, massive man/intrernet points for you!
Could you give a rough breakdown in total costs? (if you don't mind!) and do you have to be particularly clever to do it? Really interested in doing this myself but I've found the whole thing really daunting
Thanks mate, all in it cost me just under £100 the most expensive bits would be the battery and solar panels but if you keep glued to ebay there are a lot of bargains. Dont need to be that clever as long as you buy right bits and handy with a wire stripper its pretty straight forward (now I know it anyway)
Ive fused everything just to be extra careful but most of the things have in built fuses anyway so pretty safe.
Main bits you will need are:
Leisure Battery
20w+ solar panel/s
light switches (optional)
Wattmeter (optional, but I like to know whats going on)
Solar Controller
Battery Terminals
Loads of wiring
Led strip lights
Power inverter (if you want a plug)
I had a lot of 8gauge wire hanging about so got away with that as that can be quite expensive but obviously the better the wiring the better the whole system.
If you want to go for it, let me know and I can hand out some pointers.
Up until now though ive not found anything for the garage that comes close in terms of being able to have good light and use of a socket without spending loads or creating noise/fumes.