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As we endure the snow, Look at the PV Potential for Nigeria

The weather here has me thinking about Nigeria or some place that is very warm. We are waist deep in snow.

Before we share the maps with you, we will share a success story with you. Here is a home in Port Hacourt that has used Solar Power for the last three years. He has no major issues, but the system does not do what it was originally designed to do. He has 1600 Watts in panels a humongous battery bank and a 5 KVA Inverter and 12/24 Controller. He never lets his batteries discharge below 80%, but his panels are not putting back enough juice into his batteries. He uses it to power his lights, TV and Fans. He will like to power his AC. Which is the reason behind the huge battery bank.
We are currently looking over his system and we see a couple of areas that when corrected will improve the performance and allow him to us his AC for a few hours a day.

Here is a picture of the panels on the roof. sesan1

Over 1 million Naira
Over 1 million Naira

His system is sort of a hybrid. It is what in Nigeria is referred to as an inverter with a charge controller and panels added. If it had been done correctly it would have yielded him the desired result. He spent N1.2 million on the batteries, N750,000 on the Panels and N350,000 on the Inverter. Do the math that is over N2.2 million. He has saved more than that in fuel already. I did not ask him what it cost for the installation. He has not used a generator in over 3 years.

We were looking at PV Charts and people living in Nigeria have it very good. If you live in Northern Nigeria, your panels are producing at full power for close to 7 hours on average. So there are days it does more. That is just sick. People in the US will salivate to get such through put. In the South and Eastern part it is 2 hours less. Those number are still quite impressive. You can go and look for yourself.
http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/apps4/pvest.php?map=africa&lang=en
Nigeria should be blanketed in solar panels. All that free energy going to waste.

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