Author: alfmpanama

Nutre Hogar is a treatment center for malnourished children. Here, the children have a second chance in life through early intervention in health care and continuous monitoring.

Nutre Hogar, like many NGOs in Panama, still pays the regular rate complete by electricity. This is an important cost each month, mainly due to the cost of operation of appliances such as refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioning, etc. With more than 40 mouths for feed, this adds up!

In the case of Nutre Hogar – Chiriqui, the power bill is on average, just over $ 1000 per month, money that could be used much better for food, medicine and other needs. Last year, we were approached by one of our clients to see what could be done to help reduce this cost. After analysing the situation, we put together a plan. The idea being to provide NutreHogar with a long-term, maintenance-free source of electricity. NutreHogar then approached The Archdiocese of Panama who generously contributed the funds for the the panels and inverters. Meanwhile Ing. Teofilo Gomez provided his engineering services pro-bono. SiempreSol donated our services to put it all together and make it happen! It’s a real honour to be able to contribute like this to such a wonderful organization!

Here’s a brief article I wrote on using solar in the context of a “critical loads” back-up.

Use your Grid-Tie Solar System During a Blackout

Many people find it ironic that homeowners cannot use their own solar system in the event of a power blackout. This is the case for all grid-tied solar system. This is due to a safety regulation put in place to protect linesmen who are working on the grid from power coming back on from surrounding homes with photovoltaic systems installed.

SMA ‘s line of Sunny Boy grid-tie inverters allow you to have power from your solar system when the grid is down and the sun is shinning. This feature eliminates the need of batteries for energy storage by drawing energy directly from your solar panels. It will supply up to 1500 watts. This is great for refrigerators, fans, powering and charging electronics.

Solar panels are guaranteed by the manufacturer for 25 years.
Grid-tie inverters, for 10 years.

What does this mean?
When a company is willing to provide such a lengthy guarantee, you know they have faith in their products. And these companies are certainly not fly-by-night.

SMA, Schneider, SolarEdge, Canadian Solar, Outback, Fronius, Rolls Surette, Midnite Solar – all provide long warranty periods. More importantly, we know they back them up – even here in Panama!

Years ago, we would sometimes install cheaper equipment if that’s what the client wanted. But now, with experience, we won’t bother. It’s just not good business, no matter how compelling the price may be.

You need your equipment to work, and to work flawlessly when you need it. So, putting in cheaper stuff just isn’t worth the agony and frustration when things go South. With a Grid-tie system, every day you are offline, you’re losing money.

When we have a problem with equipment from a name brand manufacturer. We can call them and speak to someone. Someone competent and knowledgeable, who speaks our language, and importantly, who is in our timezone. They help us with troubleshooting and workarounds. When it’s a warranty issue, these are dealt with quickly and fairly painlessly. In one case, Schneider even sent an entire replacement inverter via DHL to Panama in a matter of hours since it proved to be defective. As an installer, this type of back-up is priceless as it allows you to resolve the issue for your client quickly and properly.

Benjamin Franklin said it best: “The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.”

Residential grid-tie systems help you reduce or eliminate your power bill. If you’re paying more than about $150/month on electricity, then a grid-tie provides a great payback.

Grid-tie highlights:
-Fast payback times (6 years or so)
-Grid-tie generally DOES NOT provide power during outages. Since you are selling power back to the grid, these systems are designed to shut down during outages. here’s why

Grid-tie process:
Send us a copy or a photo of your power bill. We want to look at your average power consumption throughout the year. This will help us size your system.

Choose between mounting solar panels on your roof, or on a ground-mounted array.

To proceed, our electrical engineer will begin the permit application process.

Once the permitting process has begun, we order the equipment, and install it. By then, we usually have the go ahead to connect the system.