My solar energy project (< € 1,- / Wp or ROI of 5 years !)
Mid of october 2012 my attention was attracted to a local paper on a solar presentation in Riethoven.
It was to be presented by Giuseppe Theuws from Bergeijk/Weebosch, who together with his neighbour
had installed a solar set in his neighbours house. It was a set of 12 panels with converter.
For presentation (oct. 15) see PowerPoint.
Since so many people were interested and showed up, a second presentation was planned oct. 22.
The info was presented in a news letter (with links to both the presentation and Excel calculation).
Then Monday, oct 31 a presentation was given in Waalre (for agenda see below).
This was not related to Waalre Energie Lokaal
31 oktober 2012 in 'Het Klooster Waalre‘, Hoogstraat 6, Waalre.
19.30u Reception with drinks and snack
20.00u Presentation by TriEco
21.00u Discussion and possibility to make appointment with specialists of TriEco
For a system of 12 240Wp panels + converter a price of € 5890,- incl. installation is presented (or > € 2,-/Wp).
Oct. 31 I asked Giuseppe for an offer of 12 poly panels and inverter.
Nov. 2 I received it (offerte SGef) so a price of € 3040,- and I am surprised by the low price.
A week later I can pickup the panels (they are really big) and the converter (which is also big and heavy. . .).
The panels are from Sunel. For label see next picture. For datasheet see SUN-L:
The converter is the Power-One Aurora Uno PVI-5000 5kVA converter.
The website tells that Power-one is the no. 2 manufacturer of converters world-wide.
I plan 12 panels in 3 rows of each 4 panels, landscape on the flat roof of my barns.
I decide to place the panels in 10° angle. This to minimize visibility from a garden view.
Also efficiency is not much less (~ 7%) from the optimum of 30° to 35° angle and has less wind susceptibility.
For mounting I use 4 aluminum strips of 50x6x300mm (which I can get for less than € 30,-) and
of which I make u shaped brackets of 50mm and 200mm heights, on each of which I can put 2 concrete
tiles of 300x300mm and approx. 10kg each.
Having the tiles between the panels, gives me also room for access for eg. cleaning and will give less pressure
by wind on the panels. For first 2 panels see next picture.
Friday Nov. 16 I receive a letter from Dutch Government (Economic Affairs www.agentschapnl.nl) that my requested
subsidy (15% on ordered materials) will be be paid within 2wks (€ 456,20).
This makes my net invest for the set of 12 panels € 2645,- or € 220,- /panel of 240Wp or € 0.92/Wp !
Yesterday (Sat nov 17) I have added 4 panels, and connected everything to input 1 om the Power-One inverter.
I also have hooked up everything to the electrical system of the house (see meterbox picture).
As reference also see Nuon offer for solar sets.
A very good offer is also available from "Onder de zon" (+ good explanation)
Today (Nov. 18) after first message "Waiting for sunshine . . ." and a startup error (Error E013: it seemed
a
dip switch setting was NOK, (PAR/IND was on PAR) first genereated Watts
(75W in humid/misery rain) come in.
Sun light flows as electricity in
watts into my meterbox/house !
Max. power I have seen was 445Wp
Tuesday (nov. 27) the second set of 6 panels is added. Wednesday I have seen 720Wp from the 12 panels. . .
In total now in 1.5wk 7.2kWh with 72hr of sufficient sun with 6 panels, or approx 100W/hr energie.
Length
of cables on the panels is 1m each. So this will limit the distance of
the panels, without need for making
interconnection cables (best is to
connect panels to each other per string without interconnection cables!).
A nice location to log and compare is www.sonnenertrag.eu. There you can fill in generated energy eg. once
a
month and compare with region/country. Eg. the Dutch version: for my
system.
- Revenue 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
To be added
- Design info brackets (+drawings)
- Scheme electrical system (+drawings)
Communication interface and data presentation:
I have bought (nov 2012) an RS232/RS485 to WiFi converter (USR-WIFI232-600) in China (@$ 79,-
+$ 20,- shipcost), but didn't manage (yet) to get it working. The test communication from PC-RS232 to
laptop WiFi works, but when I switch to RS485 and the inverter, no communication.
Then I bought a RS-232 to USB converter (ebay $ 23,- including shipping) this one is said to be used with
Power-One Aurora inverters. It works immediately and for the first time I am able to get data from my
inverter to my computer (eg. daychart).
There also is interesting info in http://www.websolarlog.com/
(community? met gebruik Raspberry Pi/Arduino voor SMA/PowerOne/Kostal.), something for wintertime . . .
note 1) On th einternet I somewhere found that Power-One only works with their own certified device!
2) the RS485/RS-232 to WiFi, I can also use to get
ship AIS from an AIS receiver to iPad on my boat . . .
Resume/conclusion:
- A flat rooft of 2.5m or 3m height is pretty ideal for self install.
- Placing panels on a high roof with steep slope is not an easy job; panels are really big and pretty heavy
- You need pretty good location for optimum install condition; risk of shade from neighbour trees
or houses. Even in my backyard of 15m behind the house I have shade of my house in november!
- Question is whether the house price will increase with panels on eg. a front roof (looks).
- Placing the panels relatively flat gives higher chance on dust/parts (leaves, bird-droppings)
- For example of quotation for solar system from WEL (Waalre Energie Lokal) see: quotation
If you have questions, you cann e-mail me: svg@svgeffen.nl