Baby Steps with Solar
Greetings, everyone!
Electricity prices in my country have reached 0.31 EUR per kWh, which pushed me to seriously revisit the idea of solar energy. Unfortunately, there are no government programs at the moment to support homeowners in adopting green energy, so I had to take this journey on my own. My goal was to find the right balance between good value, quality, and security for my smart home setup.
With a background in microelectronics, this felt like familiar ground. In fact, my first encounter with solar energy was back in 2000, when I bought a solar panel. At that time, panels were extremely expensive and mainly used for remote areas or space applications. The supporting equipment we take for granted today—like MPPTs, inverters, or deep-discharge batteries—was barely accessible. My plan back then was to design my own control electronics, but it never materialized.
Fast forward twenty-five years, and the landscape has completely changed. Solar tech is now affordable and scalable, with plenty of DIY-friendly solutions. After a lot of research, I decided to start small and build a system that can expand over time.
My first purchase: a Canadian Solar 610W N-type TOPCon Bifacial panel paired with an EcoFlow STREAM microinverter:
The total cost for my setup, after a small discount, came to 193.17 EUR.
Despite the cloudy and cold weather, today was the first day my system was up and running, injecting energy into my home.
The result at the end of the day: 1.28 kWh.
A small step, but a sweet one!
If anyone else is interested in taking the same path, please consider using my referral link with EcoFlow for a 10% discount:
https://www.ecoflow.com/eu/referral-rewards?inviteCode=A3QJMTYNRE
Long live and prosper!
Enjoy the free energy. I think some people are surprised that solar panels work when it is cloudy. I think small DIY systems can pay back fairly quickly. Ours is fairly big and I wanted it done professionally as I was not going to climb on the roof and wire it all up.
Until this year, we had amazing governmental programs for homeowners to install solar panels and batteries, but not this year. Especially then, when free money is coming from the state, you have to go to a professional setup. I've also been surprised by how easy it is these days to build a scalable DIY setup. My luck is that I have a garden that faces south, and I've placed the panel on the ground.
Good luck. I think solar is quite nice, and I am glad to hear that it is working out fine. I think it might also be a good idea to have a battery. A few times, the power has gone out, and I think having that battery as a backup would still be quite nice.
Yes, I also ordered a 1kWh battery, but it did not arrive. The plan is to charge it with solar and use it as a UPS for my workstation.
!PIMP