@kaigangio: The water plan is excellent,it is 'doable'. That's how people survive in shags.

....but I'm not sure about the elec plan... the costs of the gadgets will prove prohibitive... a 12W panel is about sh5k...3.2kW will put you back about a million bob! Secondly,you will probably not have enough surface area on your roof to fit the panels....

In my estate,we have about 400 homes. We want to sink our own borehole. We figure it will cost about 2m . . .that's about 5k from each home....


Behind the gardens...Behind the wall...Under the tree (Including: Red...Dark Blue...Yellow)

@Chaka; God said so!!

If you hang them on the walls,you lose about 70% of the output because of the angle of incidence of the sun's rays. If you put them on the ground,you the run the risk of shadows (from nearby trees and from the house etc) falling on the panels...this creates un-equal voltage out put and accelerates the aging process of the panels... can lose up to 40% of their life-span!!

@kaigangio; You can't remove your meter even if you have your own water source...reason? You still need sewerage service from Nairobi Water & Sewerage Company! Unless of course you want to dig up you own septic tank...argh..but you have already taken up the space with the clean water tank!!! Any way,sewerage service is cheap...check your water bill and see....

Behind the gardens...Behind the wall...Under the tree (Including: Red...Dark Blue...Yellow)

@ mukiha,

I quite agree that the panels will require a large surface area which they will need to occupy. i will go for 330watts panels with a total area of 2.4 square metres. i will need 10 of these panels and the surface area requirement will be 24sq.m and the roof will therefore be 7m x 5m since the panel size is 1.9m x 1.3m. The vehicle garage roof will provide the surface for the panel installations.

As for the cost,larger pv panels are 'relatively' cheaper compared to the smaller modules. i have not quite worked out the real cost but the preliminary estimate puts it at just about 1.1m. Like i said the installations shall be carried out in phases because of this big capital cost requirement.

As for the water tank i have enough space in my homestead. So i will not have any problem with its sitting.

The National Water and Sewerage Company does not offer me the Sewer services and i have been paying them for this service. I have my own septic tank.

Thanks for the correction.

@ all,

I will share with you my experiences once the ball starts rolling.


NEVER TALK OF A RHINO IF THERE IS NO TREE NEAREBY - ZULU PROVERB

I travelled across villages in the larger Muranga some 3 years ago and was very impressed by their private power generation initiatives. Almost every other stream,river,rivulet had a turbine run generator. I think such bold steps free us from incompetent frms mentioned above






Zama za Kengen IPO.... zama za mali

@Kaigangio;

There is a smallish wind turbine at the top of Zain House (Parkside Towers) on Mombasa road. Perhaps you could find out how it performs.

On the other hand,see an interesting new development on photo-cells in today's Daily Nation p26

Behind the gardens...Behind the wall...Under the tree (Including: Red...Dark Blue...Yellow)