Sizing a small solar setup for a weekend cabin in the Dales — where do I start?

Finally pulled the trigger on a little stone outbuilding on my mate's farm near Hawes. No mains, no chance of getting mains, and the DNO quote was frankly laughable. So solar it is.

The cabin's about 30m² and I'm planning weekend use only, maybe the occasional week in summer. Loads are pretty modest — a 12V compressor fridge (about 45Ah/day from what I've read), LED lighting, charging phones and laptops, and possibly a small 12V water pump. I've been looking at a 400W panel setup feeding into a 200Ah lithium battery via a Victron MPPT, but I genuinely don't know if that's undersized, oversized, or about right for the Yorkshire climate.

My main worry is winter. I know the Dales can go days without decent sun from November through February, and I'd rather not arrive on a Friday night to a flat battery. I've seen people mention a small backup generator or even a wind turbine as a top-up, but I'm not sure what's realistic for a site that I can only visit at weekends. Is a generator the sensible fallback, or am I better off just throwing more battery capacity at the problem?

Has anyone done something similar — modest weekend use, upland UK location, dealing with those grim winter sun hours? Really keen to hear what's actually worked for people rather than what the YouTube solar lads say works in Southern California.

@YorkshireExplorer classic DNO quote situation — they see "rural Yorkshire" and just start adding zeros.

Right, before anyone can sensibly size anything you need to answer a few things:

• What loads? Lighting, laptop, kettle, mini fridge? List wattages and hours per day
• Winter or summer use? The Dales in January gets maybe 1.5 peak sun hours on a good day — that changes everything
• Battery chemistry? LiFePO4 is the only sensible answer in 2024, Fogstar Drift cells are popular here for DIY builds

For a weekend cabin I'd honestly start modest — 400W of panels, a decent MPPT (Victron SmartSolar, nothing else), and 100Ah LiFePO4 minimum. You can always expand.

Don't bother with cheap all-in-one units. They look tempting but you'll be replacing them inside two years.

@YorkshireExplorer the Dales will humble you sharpish — I sized my narrowboat system thinking "how bad can Yorkshire winters be" and learned the hard way that December and January you're basically running on fumes.

My honest starting point: track your actual loads for a fortnight before buying anything. A simple plug-in energy monitor on each appliance, jot it down. The number that comes back always surprises people.

Then double it. Seriously.

Up near Hawes you're looking at some properly grim irradiance figures November through February — pvgis.ec.europa.eu will give you real monthly data for that location rather than guesswork.

Size the battery bank around your worst month, not July. Victron kit plays very nicely with Fogstar lithium if you're going that route — solid combination that half this forum runs without drama.