We are a family living in Bad Nauheim, Germany. Ten years ago I (Dr. Gero Scholz) decided to have a PV system (10kWp) on the roof of our house. Everything worked fine, we added a battery (5 kWh) and after some years we added another 5kWp panels and 7.5 kWh battery capacity. One of our sons (Bernhard Scholz) installed a similar system (16kWp) on his house.
Based on the expertise we gained during the installation of these systems we started to help other people in finding out whether a solar system could be useful for them. We helped them to define their needs thoroughly, to emit a well-defined invitation of tenders end evaluate the offerings. Over time we concentrated on people who felt that they could perform some of the installation work themselves. This resulted in huge cost savings for them compared to contracting someone to do the full installation. We taught them where to find good offers in web shops, which equipment to buy, what matarials were needed for fixing the panels and how to perform the necessary work steps – with the exception of the final step of connecting the system to the grid (which always needs to be executed by a licensed electrician).
Inspired by the idea that peoples should try to live in peace together we felt sympathy for the suffering of Ukraine. Noting that their energy grid is one of the primary targets of Russian attacks we decided to make our personal contribution in helping them to reconstruct their energy system – with a focus on decentralized solar energy.
We think that there will be some help from European countries in rebuilding larger power plants once the war is over. But we also see a good chance that private people, small companies and small public institutions like schools, kindergartens and communal institutions will install individual medium size solar systems if they are cheap enough. This is exactly what has been going on here in Germany over the last years with increasing speed.
Prices for solar panels, batteries and inverters are falling drastically in these days. So the critical factor for an installation will be the process of finding a suitable configuration and installing it physically. Although this is not totally easy it can become much easier than many people think – if you learn how to perform the necessary tasks. Men and women can learn how to fix panels on a roof (or o ground), how to connect panels to inverters and inverters to batteries. 90% of all work steps can be done by ordinary people who have some basic affinity to the do-it-yourself approach. And this means that you can get a 10kWp system with 10kWh storage for 7000€ (January 2025) or less.
If people happen to have access to donated (old) solar panels they may be able to build your their own system of 5kWp and 5kWh storage for less than 3000€.
The return on investment on such an investment wil be in the range of five years or below.
With these facts in mind we decided to proceed as follows:
- We describe all necessary steps for building your own solar system
- We carefully select some configurations which will work reliably
- We establish relationships with webshops offering the described equipment
- We build a demo system
- We establish relationships to a network of people in Ukraine who are interested in following our ideas and suggestions
- We establish relationships to charity organisations which would like to contribute to a sustainable reconstruction of the Ukrainian energy system
- We fund some children homes by donating equipment to them for free