TL,DR:
Where I live, grid electricity based on our usage would cost us about S/1000 PEN (~$285 USD) per year. A decent solar system, on the other hand, is an investment of S/35,000 PEN – S/50,000 PEN. So we’re looking at anywhere from 35-50 years to recuperate the investment on solar. Solar technology is expensive down here, mostly due to customs fees on the imports. The grid has its fair share of blackouts, so maybe we’d be better served with a small, portable solar generator just for powering a refrigerator and small lights in a grid-down scenario? Are there other reasons I should get completely off-grid?
A little background:
I live in Peru, 6 degrees from the equator in the high jungle at 3000ft elevation. I was drawn to the romantic notion of living off-grid and not being dependent on anyone else (nevermind the dependence on chinese manufacturing and a global supply chain) to supply my family’s power needs at our small home. I really come from a mentality of SHTF, but even still I’m having a hard time swallowing reality.
BTW, does anyone know how a typical solar power system would hold up during a solar flare or electromagnetic pulse?
Our homesite is not bad for solar gain, as it is on top of a ridge, and the area around the house will be maintained as pasture and not forest. Most solar maps would put our area in the range of 4 -4.5 hours of sun per day. However we live at the foot of a large mountain range, and this causes many clouds to get trapped above us.
In the long rainy season (Oct-May) it is common not to have sun at all for 3-4 days in a row. I understand this could drop solar panel output down to 10-20% of capacity. Maybe the drop in production would be less though since we’re so close to the equator?
I also considered microhydroelectric, but alas our creek is too low head/low flow for that to make any sense.
Our expected usage is 10kwh/ day. Once in a blue moon we might exceed 10kwh, Usually we’ll use somewhere around 9kwh. So, here’s what I was thinking for components. Keep in mind I’m mostly at the mercy of what vendors sell down here, since importing this stuff is a royal pain. The vendors are able to still offer a lower price than if I find the same thing on Amazon and ship it with customs and duties down here myself. For this same reason, though, I could probably source the same system components for about $3,000USD less if I were in the USA.
8 -Peimar Monocrystalline 450w panels – S/7,078 PEN
3 -Narada 48NPFC100 48v 4.8kw LiFePo4 batteries – S/23,349 PEN
1 -Growatt SPF 5000TL HVM -48V/5000VA/5000W/80A MPPT/ 60A Charger -S/3,692 PEN
Total = S/34,119 PEN or about ~$9,748USD
This doesn’t include shipping to our remote location, other accessories (wires, fuses, mounting kits, etc.) and installation. I’m also not even certain the components match or are complete. Nor does it seem to me that this setup would meet our power needs after the second or third cloudy day. So, we’re looking at over $10,000USD. Before I started researching solar this was what I considered to be the upper end of my budget. I wouldn’t want to go any cheaper than this with Lead Acid batteries or anything along those lines. I could go with some better brands: Victron controller/inverter and Pylontech LiFePo4s, but that equivalent option would cost around $15,000USD.
Here’s where I’m a bit disillusioned, because I just can’t see how off-grid would make sense:
We live outside of a small village where the local electric company charges its customers S/0.30 PEN cents per kWh. We would need to run cable about 800m from the highway in a slightly buried tube to reach our house, but I’m sure it could be done for less than S/5,000 PEN.
Based on our usage, we’d have a bill anywhere from S/80 – S/90 per month (about $24USD), or about S/1000 per year.
Compare that with a S/35,000 – S/40,000 initial investment to get our off-grid solar system up and running.
So, you can see it would take AT LEAST 30 years to recuperate our off-grid solar investment. By then we would probably have a battery failure or two.
In this situation, how would you justify to your family taking a big portion of your life savings and purchasing an off-grid solar power system capable of meeting your family’s power needs? Is it just the romanticized whims of a prepper, or is there something I’m missing, and I should still plow forward with my original idea? Personally, I think it’s best to just admit I was wrong now that I’ve done my research. If I were in the USA, paying the national average of $110 per month in electricity and could source these components for ~$3000USD less, I wouldn’t skip a heartbeat to put in my system.
Is there another way, besides economics, that I could attempt to justify the off-grid solar system to my family?
