When we built our house, I planned for the meter to be at the house; even ran conduit underground from a pole we put in. All for NORECO to want the meter at the closest utility pole by the highway, how they now keep track of what is what is a mystery. Was a surprise as we purchased our own transformer...not an issue when we were the 2nd house built in the subdivision. Now the wires are an absolute mess with some dragging on the ground with meters on that one pole NORECO wanted from 3' to 6' up and around the pole. What a mess. I'm going to ask the wife to inquire if we can move the meter...d*mn near willing to run some new poles to clean things up as well. Shawn
When I was designing our house, I was looking at being totally off-grid; this has been 14 or so years ago and the quote I got at the time for a solar/wind system was $50K. The electric bill, after all these years, still comes in between $100 to the most of $250 per month. ROI did not make sense for me. I ended up designing things with a split bus panel with a transfer switch which will power the "essential" circuits for lighting, ceiling fans, convenience outlets and the ref outlet off of a generator. The farm is a different situation; the transformer is far, to run secondary and installing poles, easement from neighbors and voltage drop made this a no go for me. We've installed a solar system to support the caretaker's house as well as power for a few things here and there on the 240V AC side. I designed and installed the system with our current workers, so was able to cut down on some of the costs, but it wasn't cheap. Once we get going on the aquaponics, pumps, aeration and irrigation systems I will figure out a hybrid wind/solar system; all 24VDC. Without the inverters the controllers for a DC system are relatively inexpensive. This is my opinion, ROI for a solar system to power your home doesn't seem to be a wise investment. We don't see the brownouts or their duration today compared to 10+ years ago. I think there are other options that could be cheaper based upon your situation. Shawn
I don't quite understand the "solar isn't a good investment" opinions. I heard those views from multiple sides, but at the same time I get advice that I shouldn't need to invest anywhere near half a million peso to get a 5 kw solar setup with sufficient batteries for night time use installed and running. Based on the statistics for Dumaguete the gross production of a 5 kw system should be around 20 kwh per day on average, so even when accounting for a system efficiency loss of 25% you'd still get an average net energy of 15 kwh per day. In a month that would save 15*30*15= 6,750 Peso, or roughly 80,000 Peso a year. So even if spending 400k on a top notch installation, I'd still get a 20% return on my investment. And yeah sure, some of that return will be needed for maintenance expenses, but still...................
I put mine in for approximately 300,000. Thats 2 batteries that last me the whole night. I dont think, though never positive, that i am not using any noreco. A little more for 3 guys to install it. I have 2 houses, 2 freezers, 1 fridge, and an aircon that we usually use about 3 hours a day. We use about 10 kw. designed it for a 5K but with the extra battery, we have had enough
