Is Solar Power Right for You?

(Page 4 of 4)

Feb. 17, 2009
By Megan Phelps 
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There’s a lot of great information out there. So just one final question for you: Are you ready to get started?

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­­If you have a solar-electric system at home or have considered purchasing one, you can share your experiences by posting a comment below.

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1 Comments

  • George Works 2/20/2009 8:31:48 AM

    We installed a solar electric system 3 years ago and am delighted with it. We live on the Caribbean island of St. Eustatius where there is plenty of sun, but electricity generally costs over 30 cents per KWh. Worse, electricity is often out for a day or more, and for several days when a passing storm damages the power lines.

    In preparation we collected the usage by appliance and used a spread-sheet to estimate total usage, and reconciled this with the electric meter reading. Since electric water heat seemed a large contributor, we replaced our electric water heater with a solar hot water heater and noticed a large, immediate drop in usage.

    We installed a 2.5KW solar array, 34KWH (to 50% discharge) deep-cycle long-life battery bank, a 4.5KW inverter and a charge controller. I did the installation myself with some help from local laborers, using some heavy locally-made wooden mounting rails on the roof to stand up to our occasional hurricane winds.

    We operated off-grid for the first year and always had plenty of power, but recently have operated in grid-interactive mode. This has the advantage that the batteries don't discharge unless the power fails, which should prolong their (15 year) life. In this mode the system "sells" excess power to the grid during the day, and "buys" it back at night using the grid as a giant storage battery.

    We've never had a problem with the system, and we no longer even know when the grid is off except by looking at the lights on the inverter. We continue to collect and analyze data on the system and have now installed a second one on our barn, and helped a neighbor design one for her house here.

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