Like charity, Sustainability must begin at Home .
Two most important considerations in sustainability is Energy and water. Ensuring Energy and water sustainability is pivotal to lowering the overall carbon footprint in the house.
This is one such sustainable house in the coastal town of Mangalore where a rooftop solar PV system and a rooftop Rainwater harvesting system is installed.
The Rooftop Solar System consists of a 4.5 KW on grid system using ‪@EnphaseEnergy‬ Micro inverters . Micro inverters have many advantages over conventional string inverters like
A. Avoids Module mismatch loss & increases the Power generation
B. Module Level Monitoring capability
C. Can accommodate more modules on the roof due to shadow tolerance
D. Flexible Design options - Allow Multiple Tilt/ orientation of Modules in one Optimizer string
E. Allow Future compatibility of Modules & avoided Module Inventory costs
F. DC Safe System (String Voltage reduced to safe limits, when AC is switched off to Inverters)
G. Reduced O&M costs due to pinpoint alerts from monitoring system & effective fleet management.
H. Long Term Warranty: 10 Years for Inverters (with 25 years of extended warranty option)
I. Future Proof Design: In future, if one or more modules fail or break, any other module of any make and any wattage can be used for the same inverter. (In string inverter, this is not possible since all the modules are in series).
J. Future Ready Design: This can also be used as off grid /Grid agnostic system if desired, if it is coupled with Enphase AC batteries. More about it in this video • Getting Solar Homes St... .
Here is an exclusive video of a Rooftop Solar PV system using Micro Inverters : • On Grid Solar PV Syste... .
Video of solar panel and Inverter installation at this site is in this video
• Rooftop Solar Installa...
The Rainwater Harvesting system consists of the following
1. Clean catchment .The solar Panel itself is a good catchment.
2. A centrifugal Pre-filter.
3. A two chamber Up-Flow baffle filter.
4. A Recharge cum Withdrawal Well (Shallow/Unconfined Aquifer).
The recharge cum withdrawal well of 40 feet deep and 5 feet Diameter.
The well takes the rooftop #rainwater , filters through an Up-Flow rapid sand filter and pushes the water into the #unconfined aquifer. It not only recharges the shallow aquifer but also makes an excellent , sweet , perineal and the cheapest source of water for lifetime . (This roof in Mangalore measuring 120 square meters receiving about 3400 mm of rainfall annually pushes in close to 3,50,000 liters of water into the aquifer )