When we built our house in Zacatitos in 1998, it was the first time that we had lived off-the-grid. Our original solar system had 75w panels and marine batteries and an old Trace inverter designed for recreational vehicles. Over time, we upgraded the system several times. We had a local Zacatitos installer do the second system, which failed completely in less than two years. Our final install and complete rework of the system was done by Innovacion Solar and since that time we have had them install two more systems in other locations for us.

However, even since our original Blue Ion system was installed, there have been dramatic improvements in both the quality and price of the components of solar systems available from Innovacion Solar and other providers. I recently visited a new install on a relatively newly-build two-bedroom home with a pool in Zacatitos. Innovacion Solar has a full engineering team, who design the overall solar system to the power demands of the house and the installation requirements.  This system has a total of 12 SunPower 450w solar panels. SunPower panels are unique in that they have a copper mesh on the backside of the panel rather than aluminum foil strips on the front, which lets them perform even when there are bird droppings on the panels. The individual cells are also flexible so that they can bend in high wind in a tropical storm or hurricane. The panels were mounted on anodized aluminum mounting racks. Therefore, there is a total potential of 5.4 kW per hour of solar power. SunPower panels also have a 30-year warranty – substantially longer than other brands.

The energy generated by the SunPower panels is converted to electricity to power the house and charge the batteries by a Sol-Ark 12 kW inverter. The Sol-Ark inverter has an integrated charge controller and shows the performance of the system on a video display on the front of the inverter. The overall system can also be monitored remotely by computer or personal cell phone.

The design of the solar system for this home uses the wall-mounted Renon 16 kW lithium-ion battery system, which is both efficient and cost effective. The batteries can easily be expanded to 32 kW with another wall-mounted battery pack. The batteries are also rated for 8,000 cycles or a lifetime of over 20 years – double what many of the current lithium-ion batteries provide.

The owners of the home have also added two ground-mounted panels to run the pump for the home and the swimming pool. According to the owners, the overall system is performing very well.