Photos of our old system are not available.
It's long gone, sorry. The technology we installed 13 years ago would not be up to speed today anyhow.
Kathy W's experience and advice is good - if you have no other options, your can make your own current and get by in a simple way. What one should not do is think for a minute that making your own power is cheaper or easier -- it's not - at least not on this island at this time.

If you are on the water and are planning on building outside of electricity then I think the best thing is a combination of Wind Solar and Generator.

Anyone who says that wind generators are noisy and do not work has not been in this country or has not seen a modern wind generator in many years. On the island at least we have an average daily wind speed of about 12 miles per hour and since most wind generators have startup speeds at about 5-7 miles per hour you will almost always be charging. They are not noisy and they are very very efficient because they also work when the sun goes down which is also when you use most of your power.

As for the batteries they now make very efficient gel cells which have a very long life. The batteries I currently have installed in my house are about 15 years old and still working. Most people who have battery problems are using golf cart batteries.

With the proper system there is nothing a good solar/wind/ generator system can't run. I am amazed that more people here on the island don't make use of this resource.

My system is greatly undersized but I still use it everyday and it handles every other aspect of my house other than the A/C and the fridge. My electric bills reflect the fact that I also use alternative energy.

Having alternative energy is not for everyone and when I moved here I would have been the last person to try and sell someone on it but now when the power goes out in town I don't even notice.

My advice is to have a company in the US or elsewhere size a system for you based on your needs etc. and then order it and have someone here install it. They are very simple to understand and maintain.

A small wind generator (marine model) costs about $500.00 USD.

Do yourself a favor and don’t take advice from people who have

a) never used a system of this type.
b) not used a system of this type in the last 5 years.

Good luck and may the sunshine down on your panels and the wind blow in your turbine.

I have to say I ran my house 2 bed 2 bath for years on batteries but they have to be the right ones each of mine weighed 160 pounds each only needed 6 to run the entire house

I had a regular refrigerator and hot water heater, fans lights everything but A/C on just 6 deep gel batterys and I ran the generator just 2 hours each day to charge them up never had any problems with the system only changed it cause regular power came up but I would love to change back if a windmill and solar powers could eliminate the need for the generator as the only pain was humping fuel up.

I really would not hesitate switching back cause once you have it its cheaper than BEL very reliable and u can always have BEL as back up power in case of problems.

Gaz

If you are still looking for land up north, we have 2 beachfront lots for sale including back lot directly behind it. It is about as far north as you can get, about 1 mile south of Mexico in the Palm Bay Subdivision. Go to www.islandproperty.cuposoup.com/land.htm for all the details. As for solar, I think a good solution would be a generator that you run to charge your battery bank. Then 100% of the output is stored. If you run only on a generator, excess capacity is wasted while you are using only a few loads.This is costly power but when it is wasted it is ridiculously costly. Pineapple Willie did this south of town very successfully. Then solar panel add-ons can be done anytime, as well as adding a wind generator. Solar by day, wind by night, and gas/propane generator whenever with maximum utility.