Solomon Perkins

How It All Started

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade”.

This statement is directly applicable to my life, as our power got disconnected (literally blown-off) from the main power line in early 2015. In looking back this unfortunate incident turned out to be a blessing and so this is a story of how I managed to install a fully functioning off-grid solar panel renewable energy system. Let me show you how I turned my darkness into sweet-sunshine.

Just for context, this installation was done on a two-bed room house in Clarendon with an average electricity bill at ~$5,000/mon. The main purpose of this blog is to tell you how I did it and in a future post will explain why you should also consider using renewable energy.

Why I Went Off-Grid

After we (my dad and I) lost power in early 2015, due to one of the neighbours overloading the powerline with his sound system, I had to figure out how to provide power to the house. During that time I wasn’t thinking about solar and so we spend the next couple months sourcing power from another neighbour. They would share their electricity and we would in turn contribute to their monthly bills. As time went on, the agreement became chaotic and we needed another option. Fortunately for us, a well-known community member was distributing some small 10W (Watt) solar system. These were powerful enough to only provide basic lighting and to charge electronic devices. So opted to take one of these systems while asking our neighbours to assist with ironing & refrigeration. This new arrangement went on from early 2016 to September 10, 2017.

In June of 2016, I saw the potential of the small 10W system and I realised the practicality of renewable energy in providing a reliable source of power for the house. During that time I was also thinking about reapplying for a new JPS connection, however the idea of using off-grid was a more feasible option. Here are some of the push & pull factors which solidified my decision:

1. The cost of reconnecting with JPS was too high. Rewiring and recertification process would cost over ~$160,000 with the majority of the cost going to the purchase of electric wire (1001ft) & labour.

2. In the “country area” (rural) JPS is not a reliable source of power. We have frequent power outages & restoration often take weeks.

3. There is no tax on renewable energy products - Caribbean Policy Research Institute. Let me repeat, the Gov. is not taxing renewable energy - YET!

4. Having annual increase in electricity rate was the norm and I’m not a fan of paying more bills. Case in point - JPS seeking another increase from the OUR.

5. Climate change is real and as a “country man” I believed that renewable was a more environmentally friendly option.

6. From a financial standpoint, the ROI and upfront cost was feasible - More details coming up in next blog post.

7. Renewable energy was booming on the island: schools, businesses & homeowners were major investors.

8. Gobally, the renewable energy sector is booming. The prices of solar panels are falling, countries are investing heavily into renewable.

9. The recipient of the Prime Minister’s Award & my friend, Kimroy Bailey, showed that renewable energy is the most practical solution to my energy problem. If you’re interested in renewable energy I do recommend using his services.

#LessJPS @KimroyBailey .. 100% renewable https://t.co/dK2jUfKdn1

— Solomon Perkins (@DAlexForce) July 16, 2016

After I noticed those socio-economic trends, how could I not act on this newly found opportunity?

The Journey Began.

After doing a bunch of research, tweeting & watching youtube videos, I went into action. It first started out as office discussions then I went into resource gathering mode. Even though Scotiabank and VMBS provide loans for renewable energy I was more interested in doing a debt-free project. As a result of that decision, the project took about 1 year and 2 months to allocate all parts of the solar system. I was able to source parts from a bunch of different places including CyberMedia (Solar Panels), Fosrich Electrical (Batteries), Pegasus Traders (racks, breaker and wires), GetSol (additional cables), Amazon (Inverter and Charge Controller).

Design & Installation

Obviously, the design was done before resource allocation began and the image above is the high level design.

The installation process took two days and here are a few photos detailing how and what we did. Just want to say thanks to my friend who is a professional electrician, Kenel Douglas, for helping with the installation:

Day 1: Setting the layout.

Day 2: Install Solar Panels and Wiring.

Left:Connecting the system to the main breaker box. Right: panels charging the batteries

System Caveats

Let me explain a few caveats:

1. As you know solar system generates power from the sun and so if you don’t have any sunshine then you know what that means. The system was designed to sustain 1 night and 4 hours without any form of sunshine. During the rainy seasons, eg: April & May, the system might not produce enough power to have 4 hours of buffer power.

2. I expect to get an average of ~6hours of sunlight per day. Cloudy & rainy days will prove to be a challenge.

3. It doesn’t include any other energy source such as windmill. I may consider that as part of future upgrade.

4. Energy conservation is very important and so we’ll have to make the necessary lifestyle adjustments. Case in point: ironing will be done while the sun is out instead of late evenings.

Cost and ROI

So you might be asking what is the cost of a project like this?

• This was a system done on a budget and as stated earlier all expense was out-of-pocket. Over the course of a year, a total of $188,575 was spent on this project. In comparison to going back on the grid, this route is just ~$20,000 shy off that cost which seemed to be not a bad investment.

The next big question is what is my ROI (return on investment)?

• From preliminary data, the calculation showed an ROI is 3.9years - will do a follow up post to verify that number.

Stay tuned for more details. Thanks.