Harnessing the Sun's Power: A Breakdown of My 509,000 Naira Solar Project

Wednesday was a very busy day for me, as it was the day I fully installed my solar setup, for which I spent over 509,000 naira, which is approximately $339. You may be surprised that I am setting up a solar system even after I recently repaired my generator, but the thoughts of wanting to make my own setup have long been overdue.

I was tired of having electricity as a major challenge in my life and having to worry about getting petrol or buying gas to power my generator or even having to depend on the power supply from the government. And when the rain falls, I lose almost every bit of hope that there will still be power for that day. It is really depressing.

But I have been living this life since I was born, probably gotten used to it
and why the sudden change?

I was tired of the whole issue, and recently something triggered the frustration that made me make this move. The apartment I lived in had its line disconnected from the power supply because of illegal tapping of the electricity. They fined the apartment a large sum of money, which was later reduced to 100,000 naira after much plea bargaining. The issue is that even with the reduction of this fee, it will take almost the end of the year before my neighbours decide to contribute to make this payment. Since I am not Father Christmas, or it is not my father who owns the apartment, I decided to take my eyes off the situation and find a solution for myself.

The second motivation for getting the solar system was that a friend of mine, who is also in my department at school and had a very similar situation with electricity, installed a solar system at his place. He spent about 320,000 naira for his. Although my setup is bigger than his,.

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Getting the Solar System

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Before I got the solar system, I had considered quite a few things based on trying to know what I wanted and what can be of benefit to me in the future. So I decided between getting a solar generator or going for a full solar setup. I had to consider the pros and cons of getting either of them.

If I bought a solar generator, the advantage of using it is that it is portable. I will be able to take it anywhere with me but the downside of it is that it is not customisable. I cannot upgrade individual parts because they are all made in a box.

And for the full solar system I built, it is fixed and not easily mobile. I will have to dismantle to make use of it. The advantage of this is, I can increase the power/load it can carry according to my needs.

After I had settled for the full solar system, I contacted my friend who did his own, and thought of doing a similar setup, but after I did some power calculations using ChatGPT, I changed my setup to making use of:

400W/24V Solar Panel - #140,000
30A MPPT Charge Controller - #80,000
100AH Battery - #145,000
1000W Inverter - #44,000
Wires, materials & Tfare - #100,000

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USING CHATGPT TO DETERMINE MY SETUP

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I started with asking chatGPT which solar panel was the best type to get. I didn't want the case here I will get something that would not be quality enough or give me the best efficiency.

The initial setup I had was to get a 2000W inverter, a 200W solar panel, and all that. Then ChatGPT did the calculations for me and wrote out the recommendations.

These final recommendations given by ChatGPT helped me finalise the materials I needed to build my solar setup. I decided to go for a 400W panel instead of a 200W panel.

Later this year, I plan on getting another 100Ah battery to add to my setup. So I can get more hours of electricity. Talking about hours of electricity, I asked ChatGPT the hours I would get based on my setup, and I got this below:

I don't know how accurate these calculations are, but I actually used my battery from 8pm p.m. until 5am before it ran out of power. That is an approximate 9 hours with my battery without sunlight.

With my inverter, I can also charge the battery, but I am yet to understand something about this inverter. When I connect my inverter to the mains, the fault light comes on instead of the power bulb.

A friend of mine told me that it was a mistake that the fault light was meant to be an indicator that the battery is charging but I do not fully agree yet. So by tomorrow I will borrow a friend's multimeter then use it to check the frequency and voltage of my meter to know if it is up to the inverter rating of 50Hz, 110-240V.

As you can see in the image below, the fault light is ON

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100AH Battery

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30A MPPT Charge Controller

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Aside from wanting to get another battery later, I plan on getting a surge protector to put in between the charge controller and the solar panel in order to protect the controller from surges taken from lightening. I don't know how much it will cost yet. I just hope it would not cost much.