Yes, our panels have been installed, producing 24 volts into the battery bank, and then converted to 220 volts for the house electric system.
Sim, os nossos painéis foram instalados, produzindo 24 volts para a bateria banco e, em seguida, convertidos para 220 volts para o sistema elétrico da casa.
Almost all the sockets, lights and wiring has been finished and we now have a washing machine running in the adega.
Quase todos os soquetes, fios e luzes, foi concluída e agora temos uma máquina de lavar roupa correr na adega.
Yesterday, we were turning things on and off, to see the numbers change on the controller panel.
Ontem, fomos virar as coisas de vez em quando, para ver os números mudança no controlador painel.
This morning the sun is pouring power into the batteries, after we climbed onto the roof to clean the panels.
Esta manhã o sol está despejando potência para as baterias, após a nossa subida para o telhado para limpar os painéis.
We have some very interesting lights in the house and they all have LED lightbulbs with a maximum power of 6 watts (very bright).
Nós temos alguns muito interessantes luzes da casa e todos têm LED lâmpadas eléctricas com uma potência máxima de 6 watts (muito brilhante).
Writing in portuguese is not easy for me. But I will persevere and learn (thanks google translate!)
Yesterday I bought a teenage reading book, also to help with my portuguese.
Escrever em Português não é fácil para mim. Mas vou perseverar e aprender (graças Traduz Google!)
Ontem eu comprei um livro de leitura adolescente, também de contribuir com o meu Português.
Parabéns!
If it’s not an indiscretion could you share how much did your set up cost and what you can power it on average (was wondering if it’s enough for fridges or freezers)?
It’s really hard to get some honest user reviews on solar arrays.
Always nice to read about your experiences!
Nuno
dear Nuno,
if you want i can give you the exact price
yes it will be possible to run a fridge and freezer if you take care that you buy an A++
if you already have your freezer let me know how big (watt) he is
and what kind of installation you have 12/24 or 48V
and if you want honest details, i should not know why we have to ly about it
if you want you can have everything on solar but it will cost you al lot of money.
sunny regards
Isabelle
hi nuno
isabelle is from http://www.suave-energia.com – the people who installed our system. thanks for your comment and help isabelle!
this is the system we have:
installation: 0,74kw
inverter: 3500w-24v
batteries: 1410Ah-24v
i’m not sure of the exact cost yet, but it’s not cheap – more than 10,000 euros!
sophie
Wow, pretty impressive .. lights look cool! everything workin so far?
greets from the other end of the world
hi nuno
we bought our system around the wrong way, as we were offered 5 x 185 watt solar panels for 460 euros each last year.
but we are only using 4 of them, as they had to be in pairs, rather than buying another one now. so we have 740 watts of panels.
the batteries – 12 x 2 volt, 1400 amp hours – are costing us 4500 euros, but they were also on special offer, and should have been 6000 euros.
the rest of the kit – regulator, invertor, and installation plus IVA at 12%, was quoted to us at about 5000 euros. as sophie said, we aren’t sure of the exact figure until we are billed, as we only asked for a rough quote to make sure we had enough money!!
so, its not cheap, in total about 12000 euros. the batteries seemed to fill up on those grey days though, and barely seem to notice the washing machine!
we also have the option, if we need to in the winter, to plug mains in if the sun didnt shine for some days, and fill up the batteries.
we have a freezer, and fridge/freezer, whirlpool washing machine and dishwasher, water pump from well, but apart from that its just lights and at least 2 computers (laptops or low energy and silent from http://www.tranquilpc.co.uk) on pretty much all the time.
we are fitting LED bulbs in all the lights, some as low as 0.2 watts!
with an average electric bill of 50 euros a month, the system will pay for itself after 20 years. and of course, produces no pollution or carbon (after manufacture – i’d like to see some figures of how a solar set up compares to the grid in terms of carbon), and we will still have power if the grid goes down.
it is possible to have a system without batteries, and feed to the grid – but rumours are that it is a complicated, bureaucratic nightmare. shame!
we won’t really get to see if we have enough panels and storage until next winter. no shortage of sunshine now!
Looks great, well done !
What a great blog. I will move from Sweden to Portugal in May and cant wait to find a nice piece of land and plant my veggies…I have heard that in Spain you can get the price of the sunpanels reduced by up to 50 % I dont know if this is correct or not?What about Portugal?
Jonas
Thanks for all the info everyone- its exactly what I was looking for!
It is quite a bit more expensive than I thought but it still seems like a really solid investment for environmental and security reasons, as Andy mentioned.
Congrats once more!
What are the LED lights like in terms of the light they provide? The ones I’ve seen and heard about have been very bright white — quite a stark “cold” light. I’ve been weighing this one up for our system and wondering whether to stick with the normal low wattage bulbs despite the extra power overhead because of the much warmer, more pleasant light they make.
you can get two different types “warm white” and another that i can’t remember the name of right now (blame it on the bump on the head!).
i really love the light of the warm white ones we’ve got in the chandelier in the kitchen. the brighter ones seem to work well in spotlights.
in terms of power usage we’ve got from 0.1w – which we’ve discovered are useless, even in the multi-bulb chandelier we bought them for – up to 6w spotlights which are very bright.
we’ve got lots of different ones so will be experimenting with what works best where when we finally move into the house.
the brighter ones are day white
the majority of the bulbs are very soft light, but the spot bulbs, as sophie said, can be very bright.
don’t forget that cfls are full of nasties. leds aren’t, which in itself is a good reason to switch to them.
Cool. Thanks. That’s encouraging. I guess it’s another good excuse to pay you guys a visit to check them out next time we’re over!
i’ve just ordered some of the newer, brighter bulbs, 60 leds in each one.
some rooms have dimmer main lights, with bright spots in places where we’ll need to see clearer, while these 4 brighter non-spot bulbs will go where we want brightness throughout the whole room.
unfortunately the supplier is waiting for new stock so will be a few weeks before we get to see how good they are.
i think, though, that leds are the way forward. they are still pretty expensive (up to 15 quid for the bright ones, with others starting at 3 quid). if we were looking for a way to make an income, i reckon importing led bulbs and other seriously low energy technology isnt such a bad business to be in. especially as they dont have all the mercury etc.
come see them next time you are out.
Adoro o seu blog. It is inspiring.
Hi, just found your blog and like it very much. It’s nice to be part of other people’s experiences.
Are you also installing a system for hot water? I’ve been thinking of it but I’m not sure if it’s a good investment moneywise – I heard the early maintenance is costly.
How about the fotovoltaic maintenance?
Wish you the best.
we have a small coil of black pipe on our compost toilet roof, which cost nothing to install, so we plan to do the same on the house roof, perhaps 100m giving us plenty of hot water on sunny/hot days, with a wood fired range in the kitchen heating water on cold cloudy days, and electric immersion heater in our water tank for cool but sunny days (when we have plenty of electric but no sun heat).
the commercial roof water heaters are efficient, but as we have several different systems running alongside we dont need efficiency, just free hot water in the summer.
simple hose pipes on the ground have provided us with showers in the past…