Picture: Low-tech Magazine’s solar powered office.
The typical solar PV power installation requires access to a private roof and a big budget. However, wouldn’t it be possible to get around these obstacles by installing small solar panels on window sills and balconies, connected to a low-voltage direct current (DC) distribution network? To put this theory to the test, I decided to power Low-tech Magazine’s home office in Spain with solar energy, and write my articles off the grid.
Solar panels have become cheaper and more efficient in recent years, but they are far from a universal solution, even in sunny regions. One reason is that a typical solar photovoltaic (PV) installation is still beyond the budget of many people. The average pricing for a 5kW residential PV system completed in 2014 varied from $11,000 in Germany to $16,450 in the USA. [1, 2] Roughly half of that amount concerns the installation costs. [3]
A second obstacle for solar power is that not everybody lives in a single-family dwelling with access to a private roof. Those who reside in apartment buildings have little chance of harvesting solar power with a conventional roof-mounted system. Furthermore, in apartment buildings, the roof would quickly become too crowded to cover the electricity use of all residents, a problem that grows larger the more floors there are in a building. Lastly, a typical solar installation is problematic when you’re renting a place, whether it’s a house or an apartment.
I’m one of those people who runs into every one of these obstacles: I live in a flat, I rent the place, and I don’t have the budget for a conventional solar system. However, I receive a lot of sunshine.
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