MacBubba Posted October 4, 2012 Posted October 4, 2012 Hi all, I am currently living in Toronto with my Filipina wife of 22 years and have been to the Philippines twice. We were there in May of this year with the intention of buying property in a location of my choosing as we will be doing the retirement thing in six years (God willing). We purchased a beach house on the island of Marinduque and I was wondering if any of you have any knowledge of using solar panels as either the main source of electricity or used in a back-up capacity? Thanks for any help! MacBubba Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i am bob Posted October 4, 2012 Posted October 4, 2012 Excellent question MacBubba! I"m sure some of the members will be able to help you with this. There have also been several discussions previously concerning Solar Panels and alternative power sources. Have you checked through the older posts listed on the main page? You may find your answer in there. (I always recommend new members spend a while just reading through the older posts we have as many questions are answered - as well as new ones formed - through our older discussions.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curley Posted October 4, 2012 Posted October 4, 2012 Hi all, I am currently living in Toronto with my Filipina wife of 22 years and have been to the Philippines twice. We were there in May of this year with the intention of buying property in a location of my choosing as we will be doing the retirement thing in six years (God willing). We purchased a beach house on the island of Marinduque and I was wondering if any of you have any knowledge of using solar panels as either the main source of electricity or used in a back-up capacity? Thanks for any help! MacBubba Solar panels are an expensive way of producing electricity, but there again so is every other method apart from the national grid. I have fitted systems and for a "normal" household without any heavy use items such as tumble dryers, welders etc you are looking at an investment of $12,000 to $15,000 dollars which need to be written off over 10 years. I've no idea what sort of prices or availability there is in the Phils. There are many things you can do to cut down the amount of power needed, good insulation in the house, I think Americans call it isolation, using solar water panels to heat water, using gas refrigeration, using a low voltage lighting system so that you do not need to convert your 24V solar energy up to 220V. Learning to turn off TV, lights, chargers etc when not in use, how many times do we see TVs on and lights on but nobody in the room? If you use a generator then learn to do washing etc when the genny needs to be on for other things. Cut down on things like ironing.... do you really need to iron t shirts or work clothes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i am bob Posted October 4, 2012 Posted October 4, 2012 There is new solar material that has come on the market that is available in a roll. Depending on where you source it, it can be inexpensive or very expensive. A more viable resource may be looking towards Wind generation if you have the right location. Sure - buying a pre-built gennie is expensive but it's not hard to make one and parts are all available in the PI. I"d add more but my netbook battery says it's time to shut down... hehe! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlyAway Posted October 4, 2012 Posted October 4, 2012 Solar panels have been on my mind for a while to. Where I work we are in the process of a solar panel project. Still in the initial permit and design phase at the moment. Once the contractor starts the install I will be paying close attention to what all is being done and the cost of everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Posted October 4, 2012 Posted October 4, 2012 >TS Did you see the CHEAP solution to get warm water? I believe it was Billten who told how to get warm water by paint a water tank black and let the sun warm the water for free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacBubba Posted October 5, 2012 Author Posted October 5, 2012 Thanks everyone for the responses. Bob, the roll-up kind is what I had in mind. My brother just moved to Nova Scotia and has opted to use this system. He was able to get them at a good price, which I think I may be able to avail of also. I don't imagine they will be expensive to ship. What I am unsure of is finding an electrician in the Philippines (Marinduque) who is familiar with this technology. I am hoping that the installation will not require much more than following the manual that it comes with (unless it's in French). The other part to this equation would be the availability of battery storage cells to get it up and running. Thomas, the black water tank idea is brilliant. MacBubba Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Posted October 5, 2012 Posted October 5, 2012 Shiping from Nova Scotia? I guess (at least parts of them) has been shiped from China to Nova Scotia... :) I took a short look at alibaba.com and almost all manufactorers are chinese. I thought minimum orders would be to big for consumers, but it was common to demand orders of miminum 100 and even less! I saw prices from around 0.5 USD per watt / 45 USD per unit FOB China, but I asume that's when buying some more than 100. Even if want a type with minimum 100, it can be solveable anyway, if buy together with a few others if not need whole order yourself. Have anyone checked effects in Phili for static mounted panels on south facing roofs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curley Posted October 5, 2012 Posted October 5, 2012 You should have no problem with getting sufficient light apart from periods of prolonged heavy cloud, panels still produce some power even in cloudy conditions. Getting them connected is no problem, you should provide a "dump" to prevent any overload. Good quality "leisure" batteries are essential.... car batteries are not recommended although they will work for a time. The type of inverter you choose is important. There are many small wind turbines sold to the marine industry and I have a contact in Thailand who manufactures slightly larger wind turbines and he has been asking me to handle the Philippines for him..... not sure that I want to....supposed to be retired! Also he has a backlog of orders in his factory Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luke Posted October 5, 2012 Posted October 5, 2012 A German company selling solar panels in PH: http://www.meister-solar.com/gallery.html 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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