davewsail
Solar Enthusiast
Hi all, I'm new here (only posted a few times on another SRNE build thread). My situation is that I'm a retired computer engineer (meaning I know nothing about power circuits, only digital logic and systems) and I recently moved to Merida Mexico and built a rather large home. It is 11,000sqft of construction with a large pool and all water comes from two wells. As it gets really warm in Merida, I also have 21 minisplit A/C units (mostly 10-12 are on regularly) along with all the standard house with a wife and 3 daughters power uses. Bottom line is I use a lot of power, between 100 to 120kwh daily.
Solar was always part of the project for a variety of reasons. As Mexico has a very inefficient state run electric utility, I'm paying about $0.2/kwh with regular brownouts, voltage spikes, and regular blackouts. But knowing nothing about solar, I just hired a solar company and was convinced just to do a grid tied system based on cost. On my roof I have 54 550w Canadian solar panels (with room for more) and 2 10kw Growatt inverters. I was convinced not to do battery storage because "it's too expensive" and at least the utility has net metering and no time of use price changes. So that is what I did.
But now living here for a year, I'm regretting my decision. The voltage spikes are the worst as they blow-up sensitive electronics. A good friend just lost his fridge. As if the fantastic price and service wasn't enough, because my house is large, the utility (CFE) made me pay for a new transformer and the labor to install power to my property line (about $15k). But the kicker is that while under construction, in the finishing stages, the power was turned on after almost 2 years of starting the process. However I still needed to wait to finish the final stages of a new contract and get a meter. Well, here in Mexico it is very common to just jumper across the meter terminals for construction power and in the end, you pay for estimated power used. I thought nothing of it until a few months after moving in, they came to cut my power. It seemed strange as I had just paid my first bill and thought it was a mistake. No, they had my address and showed me that I had a debt to the utility of almost $10k. They had calculated that I owed them for 2 years worth of service as if I was living there with all my house powered with A/Cs and all. The cherry on top was that they cancelled my net metering agreement.
So they just cut the power and left. Thankfully I got a 26kW Generac on my roof as well and that saved me for a few days. I had to get a lawyer and a court order to turn the power back on while my case is in litigation. But my solar array is doing absolutely nothing. I probably have about a year of litigation with CFE so I've decided that I'm done with them. I'm going to do what I should have done in the first place and get myself off-grid (hopefully I can keep a grid connection too though) but I don't want to be at the mercy of the grid or the policies of CFE anymore. I'm very independent by nature so I'm kicking myself for listening to go grid-tied. I have my own water source, starting to grow my own food. But power is my weakness in the independence equation.
Sorry this has gotten long for an intro. New message to talk about the build.
Solar was always part of the project for a variety of reasons. As Mexico has a very inefficient state run electric utility, I'm paying about $0.2/kwh with regular brownouts, voltage spikes, and regular blackouts. But knowing nothing about solar, I just hired a solar company and was convinced just to do a grid tied system based on cost. On my roof I have 54 550w Canadian solar panels (with room for more) and 2 10kw Growatt inverters. I was convinced not to do battery storage because "it's too expensive" and at least the utility has net metering and no time of use price changes. So that is what I did.
But now living here for a year, I'm regretting my decision. The voltage spikes are the worst as they blow-up sensitive electronics. A good friend just lost his fridge. As if the fantastic price and service wasn't enough, because my house is large, the utility (CFE) made me pay for a new transformer and the labor to install power to my property line (about $15k). But the kicker is that while under construction, in the finishing stages, the power was turned on after almost 2 years of starting the process. However I still needed to wait to finish the final stages of a new contract and get a meter. Well, here in Mexico it is very common to just jumper across the meter terminals for construction power and in the end, you pay for estimated power used. I thought nothing of it until a few months after moving in, they came to cut my power. It seemed strange as I had just paid my first bill and thought it was a mistake. No, they had my address and showed me that I had a debt to the utility of almost $10k. They had calculated that I owed them for 2 years worth of service as if I was living there with all my house powered with A/Cs and all. The cherry on top was that they cancelled my net metering agreement.
So they just cut the power and left. Thankfully I got a 26kW Generac on my roof as well and that saved me for a few days. I had to get a lawyer and a court order to turn the power back on while my case is in litigation. But my solar array is doing absolutely nothing. I probably have about a year of litigation with CFE so I've decided that I'm done with them. I'm going to do what I should have done in the first place and get myself off-grid (hopefully I can keep a grid connection too though) but I don't want to be at the mercy of the grid or the policies of CFE anymore. I'm very independent by nature so I'm kicking myself for listening to go grid-tied. I have my own water source, starting to grow my own food. But power is my weakness in the independence equation.
Sorry this has gotten long for an intro. New message to talk about the build.
