Greenhouse Phase 1: Solar Power

We had a greenhouse built for us in the early months of this year. The plan is to ultimately build an aquaponics system in it that will be as automated as I can make it, hence why I am discussing it in this blog. My next post will be about the sensors I am building for measuring temperature and humidity both inside and outside the greenhouse. The greenhouse has a climate battery in it and I am very curious to see exactly how much it modifies the temperature profile throughout the day. Once the sensor array is in I will measure the temperatures for a couple of weeks without the climate battery, and then 2 weeks with the climate battery.

Step 1 of the project was to put in a small solar array to power the greenhouse.

For now the panels are just leaning on the outside of the greenhouse. Eventually, when I decide how many total I want, I will mount them on more permanent structures. Obviously they shouldn't stay on the windows, they will block the light.

Each panel outputs a maximum of 100 watts at 12 volts. They are tied together in parallel to give 12 volts at 200 watts.

For now I am working with just two batteries. Each is 12 volts and they are wired in parallel. The box on the left is a power inverter that takes the 12 volt DC and converts it to 110 volts AC.

Also do excuse the wire mess. It will not stay that way, but until the greenhouse layout is complete with the aquaponics system I don't want to be shortening wire lengths until I know where the wires will go.

The entire system is from Renogy and was bought on Amazon. For the most part I like the system, but I must admit, the charge controller feels like a piece of cheap crap and the wires do not feel that securely attached to it despite me tightening them down as much as I could.

OK, now on to attaching the I2C sensors to the Arduino Due...