hi guys I´d like to add some content to this community after learning that some peeps I know are also posting here -about one of my years filling works- the solar business.
Some might remember that I stated this some times before here on STEEMIT that I was working a long long time in the Energy sector in Germany (and later on in whole europe), started as the guy who leads the quality control unit in my hometown at a former RWE-Subsidiary which manufactured the fuel rods for the huge nuclear reactors.
But this wasn´t my dream job, it was far to risky and most of my days I had to fill out hours with tonns of forms before I could work maybe one or two hours but that´s another story, I changed that for founding an own Energycompany with some Partners from these early days.
Since than I was head of project development for the main company in D, the rest of the group companies and the managing director in all of our foreing entities.
This was nearly 20 years ago and in this time the smallest plant we ever designed, built and connected to the grid was a nearly 80 kWp rooftop installation oriented to the south on the roof of the school of my children.
The pictures in this post are from this work, are all mine and taken by myself for documentation purposes in the company, this was now 14 years ago, enjoy these pictures from the time when we errected this plant.
(this was before we started the works, and yeah we also got sometimes sun over there, it was in may)
(and this was in the middle of all the hustle in the summer holidays when the school was closed)
...because we was not allowed to install in the time when the children where around, so we had to do it in the summer holidays when the school was closed in the midst of July to the end of August, we´ve done that Job in a little more than 10 days with all the wiring, mounting of panel stands, clamps, moduls, inverters and the testing.
It was way more work for such a tiny little plant than for one of our normal ones which had have at least 1 MWp up to 50 MWp most of them where ground mounted only a few was on top of some industrial buildings.
(one of the modul rows from the backside)
(and here zoomed out with some of the mounting crew members at work)
hehe and in August over there in Germany it could be also very warm in the sun, especially when you are working in the sun ;)
(yeah that was a lot of material what needs to be moved from the ground to the third level on the roof)
(there sitting the first rows completely mounted on top of the roof)
(yeah the roof is covered with all that nice blue shining PV-modules)
(and this is the most important part of the installation, the place where the wiring comes down to all the stringinverters at a good ventilated area)
All these pannels feed in their generated energy in the grid from the town and had an at this times still existing good feed in tarif which bolsters the pockets of the school and pays off the plants cost in a time period of about 5 years.
I hope you enjoy this post.
with sunny greetings from Spain
Hi @don-t, that must have been a great time!
And this is such a great job mounting those PVs. By the way, where there anything like back ups on this system or they were just sustaining in the sun alone...?
Good to know you've had experience in the energy sector.
I could spend my entire weeks on top of that roof mounting PVs...😀 I love it!
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thank´s for the warm welcome @ubongudofot,
yes for sure it was (and still is) a pretty amazing time with these installations and that work in the energy business at all.
to answer your question, back in the days of 2010 there was no need for a back up system this was way before the turmoil in Ukraine and the energy crisis which brings the need for these measures to Germany.
We also got pretty good feed in tarifs for such installations when we connect the plants directly to the national grid what we did in this case, it was about 21 €-Cent per kWh fed in, not as good as we had it in Spain or in italy where we had in the best form 62 €-Cent and 41 €-Cent per kWh.
Today the plant in Germany on the rooftop of the school is having 5 more years to go with the old contracting scheme and after that they will be forced to consume all the generated energy by themself or to market it on the free market to very bad conditions, but this plant is already paid off complete and running in very positive numbers, so let´s say it was a very good idea to talk to these peeps and give them the impulse not only to think about using their rooftop cleverly but moreover bring them to opt out for gaining additional money out of the most reliabal energy source on this planet the sun.
But hey what did I say, you and your people over there have lots more of that gift on hand (like me here in the south of Spain).
I´ve been there nearly my entire work life first like I mentioned in the nuclear business, than in the PV sector and since the early 2000´s also in the field of Hydrogen development solutions and designing of electrolyser plants in combination with PV or Windfarms.
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That's such a great profile you have there in the field of renewable energy! I bet, it might take me some years to gather those experiences. But the good thing is - I am working towards it as an installer.
Yes, we're fortunate to have an abundance of sunlight in Africa, and it's important we make good use of it. The only problem is that solar over here is very expensive.
I've made series of research about Windfarms..., it's not comon here...
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I´m sure you will make your way in that field, you will learn the skills you actually not have with the ongoing work ;)
oh yes I know, its about the tarifs on top of the normal prices, the longer transport routes, and the lack of modul factories in Africa, but believe this will change very soon with the uprising of the BRICS nations where two of the major PV-Module producer in the world are in, as there are the Chinese and the Indians the two nations that together produce more than 3 quarter of the worlds PV-Panels. And as they opt out for new business oportunities they will will for sure seek for places over there in Africa to built some Mega-factories because of the cheap labor cost and the not so heavy regulated framework for erecting such a facility and with such a step there would be no more huge tarifs, no huge transportation costs in summary much cheaper products for you, your customers and the other companies who deal with that kind of stuff -a big win for all-
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Thank you so much. I am so passionate about renewable energy and it looks like I might invest my life savings in this sector.
I am still sorting out for some great ideas on how I can grow and how I can improve the health of my solar business.
You definitely have a lot of knowledge about this! This is true.., we don't have any manufacturing companies here in Nigeria. I'm not sure if there is any place in Africa.
We buy from China, India and Canada. But majorly from China and India.
When the top guys buys these components, they determine the prices we sell in our end.
I am seriously waiting for a time were solar manufacturing companies would be everywhere Africa. Even if it's not in Nigeria, I can always travel to such country for business deals, hence it's in Africa.
As we speak, some Indian companies are already here, but they are not producing. They import from their country and sell it here. It would make a lot of sense if they can manufacture it here.
This sounds like a good deal.
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you´re welcome ;)
aaah, don´t do it, don´t risk more than half of it, so if the journey leads to some kind of accident you at least have the other half to build up another source of income for you and your family!
Use friends and family and existing happy buyers of your goods to grow your business incentivize them with a small portion from your earnings from a deal, this will make your business growing at a much faster pace ;)
that´s quite normal, as a small business you wont get the same prices as a huge company who orders regulary thousands of panels, wires and inverters.
you will see this happen in a short period of time, I´m quite sure about. We had this in Europe too, first we had some manufactoring companies in Germany the major players but as they were rising the Chinese buyed the manufacturing companies for the production equipmnet and then hired some German engeneers so that they can learn how to do the processing of all, the learned fast and now they are the number one and in Germany there is no Panel producer left, they also have to import the panels from Japan, China, India and the US.
On th eother hand there are actually panel manufacturer in Sicily (Italy) and some again in Spain all joint ventures with Chinese or Indian companies. The production sites will come automatically near to the places where the highest demand is, its easier to manage a production plant in a foreign country, and even more tax effective and cost saving, than shipping all the modules around the world and wasting tons of fuel.
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Naja, das ist dann ja doch mehr als 'ne Hausnummer größer... ;-)
Die Amortisierung der Anlage innerhalb von fünf Jahren ist sehr beeindruckend. Da kann man heute nur noch von träumen...
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hihi ja das ist wahr das funktioniert nur unter sehr sehr besonderen Bedingungen wie Großeinkauf der Materialien etc. für große Kleinanlagen wie eure nicht machbar, nicht in D, sicher nicht, in Spanien, sizilien und Zypern kein Problem , in Afrika sicherlich auch nicht, manche Ecken der Welt sind eben doch mehr von der Sonne geküsst als andere ;)
Aber bei eurem Stromversorger habt ihr ja vorher auch nur bezahlt dafür das ihr Strom bekommen habt, wenn man das auf die Dauer zusammen oder hoch rechnet da sollte selbst unter aktuellen Umständen die Anlage der bessere Weg sein, zumindest kann dir keiner damit drohen den Strom abzustellen, der kommt ja jetzt auch vom Dach nicht nur aus der Steckdose ;)
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Nee, die letzten Tage hat die Anlage nicht einmal den 5 kW Speicher füllen können. Obwohl die Anlage auch bei diesigem Wetter und reinem Diffusionslicht produziert: So dauerhaft um die 250 W... ;-D
Auf jeden Fall!
Davor, dass uns der Strom abgestellt wird, fürchte ich mich zwar nicht, doch eine Explosion der Energiepreise ist schon unangenehm genug.
Habe mich z.B. gerade sehr darüber geärgert, 650 € Gas nachzahlen zu müssen. Nicht wegen Mehrverbrauch... Die ständige Preisentwicklung und -veränderung haste ja heute gar nicht mehr im Blick. Mindestens in einem Bereich bleibt die Überraschung nun erstmal aus... ;-)
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Good work ! Love the method you have used for angle correction which will increase the efficency. For my country Sri Lanka, the optimum angle is around 7-10 degrees for a south facing roof. But I see in your country it's a considerable amount.
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Thank you !
oh yeah in Germany its about 32 to 37 degrees depending on the location if it is more in the south or in the north of the country.
In Andalusia Spain where I actually live we have an angle in between 17 and 27° facing south.
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Thanks for the information.
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