Building new Off Grid Home in Panama

Re: Bulding new Off Grid Home in Panama

Hi Panama Retiree! I wish I'd seen your thread sooner but unfortunately I rarely visit this site for more than just searching threads for troubleshooting problems if I can't get through to tech support in the states. I don't currently live offgrid myself but I have helped many people down that road here in this south-western corner of Nicaragua. Perhaps some of my experience can help?
We have a slightly dryer climate up here than you and a shorter raining season plus very good winds 8 months of the year. For PV system design we work off a 5 hour yearly peak sun hour average for the year. Obviously we get significantly more than that in the dry season. We've found that the good "window" for power production is between 8am to 4pm here and site PV accordingly with any Wh harvested before or after that window a bonus. Really the strongest sun hours are 9am to 3pm(Central American time -1.00 hr from you). I've found performance of the systems to be more than adequate this way during the raining season as we usually have dry sunny mornings becoming cloudier as the day progresses with evening/night thunderstorms. There are rare occasional (say 10-20 days in total) spells of a few days when it'll rain most of the day and be thoroughly overcast. Unless it is heavy rain I have always been surprised by how much the panels still produce with the tropical sun down here! For Nicaragua I have found the NREL solar and wind maps to be a fairly good guide before taking into account site specific issues. I have found that tilting panels at Latitude magnetic south(no declination here!) provide the best all around results here in Nica though I have toyed with the idea of less tilt and a bit more west to see if that would provide better (sunny morning) raining season performance. I have yet to try it! I am very interested in how your array plan will work out. Will you monitor each separately?
For generators I've liked the Honda EU series on smaller systems or even cheaper Yamahas but I prefer the diesels from around 6kWh and up. Get the right one and it'll outlast the gas egine counterpart many times over plus not guzzle fuel. I think the Kubota Lowboy series is a pretty good setup for a backup genset to solar and not too extravagant. I haven't tried a Hyundai yet but I'll be looking them up now for sure! Not sure if there's a local dealer. For Kubota there's the dealer plus other importers who sell the tractors here. Importing can be a huge pain in Nicaragua so it helps to have some local support.
On inverters, I've found Outback to be excellent for many situations and they've been a bit more rugged(bug resistant too! So important in the tropics....). The real clincher is that not only have Outback been great to deal with and have provided great warranty support for me down here from up in N. America but the inverters are very field reparable. Xantrex have left a lot to be desired in service and support(even local) while their inverters have been a pain to repair/warranty. I see that you're leaning toward an XW.... is that because of gen support? I note that you can achieve this with the G series Outback and the Radian line also. Just an FYI.
I haven't seen mentioned on this thread SG and the tropics for batteries. All the batteries shipped to here seem to be shipped activated and with higher SGs. How are you accounting for this in your battery setup? Are the US Battery's you're getting "Tropical"? I've seen a lot of the 6vdc golf cart type in the past and they looked very similar to the Crown equivalent but they didn't seem to last too well. I've had more luck with Trojans down here for some reason(just not their AGMs!). Anyway I've enjoyed reading this thread and I look forward to seeing the rest of the system take shape. Good luck with your Offgrid journey!