jeff ramage

if you live where it is colder, you can convert an old refrigerator to a cold box. replace the back panel with a an aluminum plate, and build in out on an exterior cold wall. The aluminum plate is great cold conductor.

And you have to baffle it off for extremely low temps, or your food will freeze solid.

Another way is to use milk jugs and water to create large ice cubes for the fridge and freezer.... fill and set outside to freeze up, and put them in fridge and freezer to keep items cold.

winter is hard on batteries, if your bank of batteries is allowed to get cold, the efficiency goes down. but also the amount of sunshine is of course a lot lower.

if you want to get an evaluation done, contact a distributor of the Dow Solar Shingle system.

They are capable of calculating your loads, required storage, and feedback rate to the grid.

and they will price a complete system for you. that is one data point, then from that you can use their numbers to calculate other options.

http://www.dowpowerhouse.com/

whether or not any of it makes sense for you personally, is a call you'd have to make after having a solid analysis completed.

Please..everyone...if you use water for thermal storage in any system, and it has the potential to get to boiling...please put a stack pipe to atmosphere.

And... connect all the high points in the system to the stack pipe.

one cup of water = 16,000 cups of steam = bada big boom, if trapped or not relieved.