Has anyone done it? New farm with electric scheduled to be put in the week before Christmas, unfortunately temps will dip into the teens with highs in the twenties for the next week and a half or so.
Looking at Jackery and Ecoflow generators with solar panels but didn’t know if anyone had used one before for this purpose. We have the floating blue tank heaters.
I have a facility that’s 100% off the grid. We have a mixture of goal zero, Bluetti, and a large solar trailer with batteries (no particular brand name). They run a well pump, an irrigation pump, irrigation controller, an entire tiny home (heat, AC, washer/dryer, lights, etc), and lights in the tack/feed storage.
You’ll need to be sure that the daily power draw on the battery isn’t more than you’re inputting daily with your solar panels. There are some solar panel and battery calculators online.
Heat takes a lot of power (compared to lights) so you’ll want to make sure your calculations are correct, and always round up. If we’ve learned anything, it’s that you never get as much power as you think you’re going to. If you don’t have direct sun or a lot of sun this time of year, size up even more.
Both Bluetti and goal zero have Wi-Fi capabilities, in case you have Wi-Fi on the property. That will allow you to check the charge and the charging rate remotely.
You can always break troughs 3x a day, to remind you why you’re putting in the electric!
I have a small Jackery power bank I bought for camping. It is very, very, very slow to charge off solar. I’m not sure if their actual generators are more efficient.
for the short duration of getting power to this watering site to me this would be the solution
I suspect the installation of the power is going to be a real mess if they are to be trenching for the installation. The backfill will not compact easily in freezing conditions.
I hope they know where the water lines are,
I have a Jackery generator with solar panels. I also have a full solar system on the house. A couple observations.
Jackery says that charging and discharging at the same time is possible but harmful to the battery. You’d need a couple batteries–one to discharge and one to charge. They aren’t cheap!
It’s SLOW to charge. A couple days. In the summer.
Which raises the next point: winter is a shit time for solar. Days are SHORT. The angle of the sun is very low. This is the absolute worst time of year to ask solar to power anything.
I would also just plan on breaking ice. You’d be better off insulating your tough as well as you can.
Eta, if you’re just really wedded to the battery power idea, skip solar and just buy a couple few batteries. They charge off of a plug just fine (dunno how long it takes.) I assume you’re not on the property without power, so bring them home, charge em up, and take them back. You don’t need the solar panels.
Dang, ok. Sounds like solar isn’t going to be the solution I was hoping for! Breaking ice, it is!
Super annoying that we usually don’t get colder than 40s this time of year…except for the year we don’t have electric yet 
I’m not sure how well it would work, but maybe a circulating pump and a panel designed for solar water heating might work? The pump would take less power than actual heating.
How far is the available electric from the trough that needs the heater?
You might be able to run a temporary heavy duty extension cord to the trough for the heater, to get you thru the cold spell.
Clearly run this by your electrician/engineer first (length, versus cord, versus heater load).
Those heavy duty extension cards are expensive as hell but so handy to have around.
We went through the same thought process and ended up putting in Bar Bar A auto waterers…all you need is to have the water pipe running to them. No electric needed. They don’t freeze. A bit of work to get them in properly…but well worth it! Every winter I am reminded how much I love them and how worth it was digging the holes to install them. My horses also prefer drinking from them than the buckets in the barn too.
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