ADVANTAGES
⦁ RENT YOUR ROOF FOR SOLAR.
The owners of a large warehouse, commercial apartments, Hotels or strip mall might make a pretty penny by rented their roof (with a good roof). The average roof rental home conditions will be negotiated between MT-GE and the owners. The amount oft he rent check would depend on the square footage rented.
⦁ INEXPENSIVE AND BANKABLE ENERGY ACCESS
Stand-alone DC grids offer an inexpensive way to achieve energy access for all. Initial investment costs per household are very low. The sale of energy to users connected to the DC mini grid generates a continuous cash flow for the grid operator. As efficient DC loads are used, better energy per-formance is delivered. Users pay as much as they did before for a significantly improved energy service.
⦁ PROVEN BUSINESS MODEL
The DC grid operator employs an effective business model which has been in use in AC diesel grids. With reasonable hardware costs, maintenance costs close to zero and no generation costs, DC grids are the best solution.
⦁ SELL ENERGY / IMPROVE ROI
In public buildings like schools and health posts, DC mini grids can be employed to provide energy to each user based on individual needs. If a bigger solar sys-tem is already available, return on investment can be improved significantly by selling energy to neighbours.
Solutions
COMMUNITY SOLAR,
Community Solar allows residents to subscribe to a local solar farm or rooftop, offset their energy use with renewable energy, and see savings on their utility bill. If a community solar customer defaults on their payment, the project developer can simply switch them out with anyone else who wants to sign up. Project developers keep customer waiting lists for exactly this purpose.
SMART DC GRID
In the rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, where most of the world’s unelectrified people live, the typical housing pattern includes small clusters of closely-spaced houses (comprising around 20 to 50 houses). The solar DC -grids we are developing are sized to suit this typical housing arrangement. Each DC-grid comprises a main solar photovoltaic array for electricity generation co-located within the housing cluster with a main battery for energy storage. The individual houses within the cluster are connected to this main generation and storage facility via cables and energy meters.
The producted electricity is distributed via low-voltage direct-current (DC), thus avoiding the cost of an inverter. Highest efficiency low-power-consumption loads are provided along with the DC-grid infrastructure to ensure that resistive cable losses are kept to an acceptable level.
A central system monitoring and transmission device sends information about the system status to the energy meters (PM) in the individual houses which allows for flexible tariffing depending on the state of charge of the main battery and the solar resource. Any households within the cluster having existing solar home systems may also be connected to the DC-grid via an energy meter (PM), meaning that existing SHS infrastructure is not rendered obsolete by the arrival of the DC-grid. In future, higher voltage DC interconnection of DC-grids between clusters may be implemented to form a wider-area grid by a process of “swarm electrification“
The PT transmitter communicates through sig-nals with the PM power meters. Power tariffs are cheaper during daytime and when there is excess energy in the grid. During night time or at times of low energy tariffs, become more expensive.