The Caribbean Renewable Energy Forum (CREF) awarded its 2023 prize for “Best Microgrid” to Solar Island Energy and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) for a project on the Caribbean Island of St. Kitts that was designed using HOMER Pro® software. Key features of the microgrid include its …
Better to Build Solar Energy or a Microgrid Now or Later? What is the Best Financial Decision?
The first time I ran this analysis was 10 years ago in 2014, then again in 2018. Now let’s look at the picture for 2024 and beyond; although the conclusion might be obvious. (Note that I will call a solar-energy electric system a “PV” System, from “photovoltaic”, and solar panels are actually PV …
Microgrid System Sizing & Performance Modeling
Making electricity with diesel fuel is expensive, pollutes the environment, and is difficult to budget because of the exposure to global markets. Solar energy is a great alternative for communities or islands that make electricity by burning diesel fuel. Here are the top-3 questions we get from …
Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season
With the coming hurricane season, it is important now to think and plan ahead for the safe operation and maintenance of your property overall and specifically your PV system. Solar Island Energy has been a contributing author to the 2018 and 2019 authoritative publications on hurricane …
March 2020 Letter from the President
2019 Recap Looking at last year in the rearview, we aren’t sure whether to call it the year of the PV Carport or the year of the PV+Battery Microgrid. There have been several of both types of specialized projects, along with our bread and butter of commercial/industrial rooftop PV and utility PV …
