What is a reasonable price for enough solar panels to power a large amount of condos and other buildings?

Question

I'm doing a school project and we need ways to be green. I have to power a retirement community in Florida. I have 15 large condos, 3 beach houses, 3 restaurnats, a pool, gym, hot tub, sauna, grocery store, gas station, and several offices. They don't have to power everything but I would like to be as green as possible. Also maybe other suggestions on good ways to go green.

Answer 1

First of all, it is impossible to fully power them with Solar Panels unless you plan to have no power from late afternoon to after sunrise. Also no power on rainy days (Rains a lot in Florida)

One decent Panel will cost $300-$400. It will be about 7-10 ft2 (SQ FT) area. It will only produce enough power for about one or two light bulbs (50-80 Watts). You can get higher power panels (150-250 watts) but they will be $800-$900 each.

Get the picture? Very expensive. Very unreliable. Takes a huge area to produce much power which is a big environmental impact.

Atypical house installation will cost $20,000-$80,000 according to what level of performance you want and will you be completely independent from the electric company.

All the calculations are readily available at many sites on the net.

Answer 2

With net metering is possible to make 100% of your power needs.  The up front cost will be high, but long term it will be free.  So if you need $500k of solar panels and it take 30 years of current energy use to pay back that cost, after that it's free.  And WE all like free.

Use less, use less, use less.  Every dollar you save in use you save five in production cost.

Answer 3

Install a community solar adsorption chiller using solar thermal to heat and cool all the buildings.

http://www.appalachianenergy.com/commerc...

Answer 4

i would look at this in a diverse approch.

1. being that it is florida, i would start with using PV on the houses in combination with a couple of small peak mounted wind turbines (sources oynot.com, solardyne.com, sunwize.com and on and on).

2. condo's are different. they usually have flat roofs so the turbines would be out of the question and so would PV. Instead i would use hard mount solar panals, and try to be energy efficent in other areas of the construction.

3. the pool is an easy one. your in florida, unless you want to cool it in the summer, and heat it in the winter, then just run the water through a condenser that is in a solar water heater loop. and the same answers apply to the rest.

But the best ans is think about it before you build, build with the surroundings, and plan for it by being construction wise.