After five weeks of designing, ordering and coordinating over sea shipments, we are about to depart for the final installation phase of our Maui PV system.  As things move a bit slower in this part of the world we have needed every day to bring the pieces and people together to be at this point.

Several hundred feet of buried conduit are being set this week in advance of the final week push of installation.  A new concrete pad has been poured for the 500 gallon propane tank which will fuel the backup generator.  Project objectives have grown which is typical yet always different.  As we found a place for this tank it was decided to pull the old above ground diesel tanks which died long ago.  It is amazing to see what this rainforest climate can do to steel.  The top portion of the tanks have literally rotted away.  Don’t stand in one place to long or a vine will start growing up your leg.

We will be installing 27 Sharp 235 watt modules, three of which will operate the swimming pool circulation and filtering pump directly.  An Outback power panel including 4 outback inverter/ chargers will be placed in the equipment room along with 24 -2 volt cells to give us a large battery storage system.

Check out the video clips of our initial inspection.

SBS_Maui_prelim_recs

Not a bad place to have to work as long as the vines don’t get ya!

Dan Brandborg
CFI Photovoltaic Energy Specialist
NABCEP Certified
dbrandborg@sbslink.com

Tags: energy conservation, maui, off the grid, Solar, solar array, solar PV, solar thermal