The buzz around our products has been very high. The demand has been very strong and with that in mind we are making some improvements to our offering.
Starting on May 1 the systems will come with installed solar panels equivalent to the system label. Our current 1KW systems comes with 800 Watts in panels. The new upgrade will come will the full 1KW. The 1KW system will be priced at $3499.00 before installation compared to $2999.00
We created a new flash animation ad that we are excited about. Please share your thoughts.
Q. We see street lights that don’t work. Why would my solar installation work?
A. Street lights are exposed to many conditions your home installation are not exposed to. 1. Vandalism: People destroy them by accident (cars run into them), people steal the batteries. 2. The installation was not done properly. 3. The street lights were of sub standard quality. 4. The lights purchased were not designed for the environment they were installed in.
Q. Solar is very expensive. For the money I can buy generators or an inverter.
A. Relative to either, Solar power is more expensive when you consider the initial outlay of money. When you have to operate them then the Solar system comes into it’s own. A generator has moving parts and requires fuel to run. A 3 Kva generator consumes 2.2 to 3 liters of fuel an hour. If you run it for an average of 8 hours a day, you are consuming 16 liters of fuel a day. At N100 per liter that is N1600 per day for fuel. You do that everyday for 1 year your cost is [b]N584,000[/b]. Add the cost of repairs and service and your generator costs closer to N650,000 per year not including the purchase price. Your inverter is a great system as long as you get power from the grid for a few hours a day. If your experience is similar to what is currently in Nigeria, then you need a generator to charge your Inverter. Lets say you charge the inverter by running the generator for four hours day, that Inverter now costs you N292,000 per year in addition to the purchase cost. A solar installation that will power the same equivalent as your generator will cost you about N550,000. Your cost to run it is N0. It will run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All it needs as fuel is sunshine. In Nigeria we have sunshine in abundance. It has no moving parts and requires no maintenance.
Q. Is solar reliable:
A. Yes it is very reliable. The first solar panels were installed in the US in the 1950’s and some of them are still generating electricity today. The US space program has satellites and orbiters that were launched in the 70’s that are still aloft today. They are powered with solar. Because Solar powered systems have very few moving parts they can last a very long time. Solar panels can last 25 years or more. The inverters and other systems can last longer than 10 years if properly taken care of
As we begin the second quarter it is hard to believe the progress we have made.
On the staffing side, we hired Astrea Essandoh from Ghana to be our Chief Technical officer. He will oversea and have the responsibilities of managing our installations in Nigeria. He has NABCEP training and he has installed a few Wind and Solar systems in the United States and in Ghana. We are currently interviewing sales people to staff our office in Ladipo, Lagos.
Atlantic Waste & Power is the official factory representative of Senwei Energy Technologies in Africa and North America. They manufacture one of the best selling small wind turbine in Europe. They have UL, CE, TUV, IEC and other top certifications. This makes them one of the few manufacturers that can sell systems on every continent. We are receiving calls from Nigeria and Europe from people interested in purchasing their systems. We are listed on their website as official representative.
A.W.P.S visited to the North American Factory for SIEL. They are a manufacturer of residential and Industrial grade Inverters. They are headquartered in Italy and opened the factory in Parsipanny NJ last year. Luca Arcioni the sales manager was happy to welcome us and looks forward to building a small utility scale project with us in Nigeria.
The story of how we got started was featured in an online publication called Africa Business Jump Start. We got very good press, a few phone calls and a lot of emails. People were inspired by our story. The magazine gets over 500,000 visitors a month. It is a good resource for people who want to start a business in Africa. You can read the article here.
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