Best Posts in Thread: New solar thinking

Totally correct.

It is quite possible that the fellow with the huge compound sized his solar arrays to cover his bill on good days then tied to the grid so that on bad days he could draw from it.

It is totally conceivable that such a huge compound could consume 40K PHP per month in electric usage so a system that produced that amount on sunny days would likely only produce 1/2 on the cloudy and rainy days. If so then a bill of 20K a month on bad months is still in the Plus column.

 

Complications, yes. Additional expense, yes. But it can be done. I wish I could draw and then I could show you how it is done, but let me try and describe it:

Picture this: You have your solar panels tying into the power lines and the power lines feeding the Electric Service Panel in your house. That is where the power company stops their jurisdiction and it is up to the homeowner to ensure that no power feeds backwards into that Service Panel, (and thus into the lines).

At that point there are commercially available switches, manual or automatic or even built into high end inverters, which will allow you to connect a generator or battery power to your in-house circuits when the grid is down. For me, I had a bank of batteries, connected to an inverter, that automatically kicked in when the grid was down and then they automatically recharged when the grid came back on. Thus, when the grid comes on during the day, it is your solar power recharging those batteries. However, if the grid comes on at night you will automatically recharge those batteries from the incoming power lines SO it may be desirable to shut off the auto-recharge at night. Up to the individual.

There is a learning curve. Much of this has to be installed by yourself or by a highly skilled and intelligent installer.

 

From what I understand, Noreco doesn't do net-metering (a meter that runs backward if you generate more electricity than you use), but installs a second meter instead to measure how much you deliver back to the grid.
Their rationale for this is simple, they only pay you about half of what they charge you per kwh.
Obviously, this is a rather unfavourable aspect when making ROI (return on investment) calculations.
In my thinking this and the lack of any subsidies when installing solar makes it
a. unfeasible to install a really big system that would allow to have zero electricity bills (as in: you could but you'd not get any sort of acceptable ROI) unless a future further price decline of suitable batteries is going to happen (so there would be no need to deliver much electricity back to Noreco at all);
b. still very feasible to get an installation that more or less covers let's say 80% of your average daytime use of electricity, while you don't deliver much, if any, electricity back into the Noreco grid.
c. suitable batteries (4,000 plus charge/discharge cycles, built-in BMS, allowing deep discharge), so not your typical car battery, are of the LiFePo4 type, currently around 1000$ for a 12V 200 Ah. Two of those, with an inverter would probably be ok to shield you from most blackouts (not the full day "scheduled" ones), but
d. to cover all your nighttime electricity use in this country, depending on how many aircons you run, you might need 10 or more such batteries, so a solid 10,000$ at today's prices.
Disclaimer: I am not an expert (except for the ROI calculations), and my information might therefore be wrong.

 

I think it was 2017 when my friend put solar on the roof of his house in Tierra Alta. (He has passed on now so cannot ask him). It was/is tied to the grid and he ended up with zero to pay on his power bill. I remember him saying he also got a yearly check from NORECO.

At the same time I put in a battery backup system in my house to get me through brownouts. It had nothing to do with NORECO. I do not see why you could not get a grid tie in AND THEN do an internal battery backup system without even mentioning it to NORECO.

 

Do you know what kind of solar panels? Many different kinds and size, also the inverter could make a difference.
Never heard of solar panels not working for 4 months of the year because of bad weather.

 

I want to start out with just a few panels for lighting and an off grid system. I believe that if you want to build an expandable system you need to use micro-inverters. I think DPX is the largest supplier in the area and I will check them out on my next visit to see what equipment they use and if they have a system size limit. I have found a decent do-it-yourself supplier in the states. They have a ten panel minimum system requirement but they ship all the wiring and parts needed for a project.