There are so many cool things the sun can do. Like fry an egg on a footpath on a really hot day. Grow the food we eat. Melt a toy army man (or set fire to things) with a magnifying glass. And of course… sunrises and sunsets.
We think the sun is pretty amazing… and that’s why we decided to use it’s superpowers to provide our boat with energy!
Very early in the boat story we KNEW, that no matter what, we were going to forego the immensely polluting (and horrifically noisy) diesel generator system that is so common over here, in order to provide our boat with electricity. After all.. we really couldn’t get comfortable with placing so much effort into conservation with one hand, whilst on the other… not doing all we could to reduce our carbon emissions (or as put by one of our more straight talking team members, being “big-dirty-polluting-greenwashing-hypocrites”*).
So, with the support of SMILO (Small Islands Organisation) and BLUE (formerly Zenzon) we were able to install a state of the art solar system of 5000KWh !
How does this solar power system make us feel? Well, if we had to describe it… we’d say ‘WOW” (or something similar).
We’re stunned at the power of the sun and at the amount of energy the system produces.
We’re amazed every time we turn on a light, charge something up, use the fridge, a power tool, a fan… and realise “the sun did that!!”.
We’re more relaxed because NO MORE NOISE POLLUTION (a generator at close range = #worstsoundever).
And most importantly; we’re more congruent with our mission because of LESS CARBON EMISSIONS.
We’re grateful that with the money we save from NOT having to fuel up the diesel-guzzling generator… means more of our funding can go directly into field projects and providing local community livelihoods.
So in case you didn’t get the picture… we are absolutely thrilled with our solar power system!
We want to thank Mark, Putra and the team from Smart Energy Tech for their enthusiasm for sustainable solar energy and professionalism and expertise during installation – we are so glad we crossed paths!
In summary, if you are ever in a position to install solar power, and make the most of one of (the many!) free services nature has to offer… we honestly cannot recommend the shift to solar highly enough. It truly is amazing.
This post was brought to you by Your Sun Loving Solar Panel Enthusiasts at The SEA People.
PS: This SEA Story was typed on a computer charged by the sun ?
*Strong words, but nevertheless, we ran the numbers on a emissions from the diesel generator that came with the boat (‘we’ being people smarter than us with wisdom and expertise in this) and we felt a little sick when we saw how polluting diesel generators were (and thought about how common they are over here!)… but then we immediately felt better knowing we would NOT be producing such insane amount of CO2 emissions!
But for full transparency and to avoid ‘greenwash’, we advise that we still use the generator for 1 hour a day, 4-5 days week to fill scuba tanks.
Thankyou to SMILO and Blue (formerly Zenon) for supporting our endeavour to minimize the our emissions on board, and utulise the power of Mother Nature for a clean energy supply! It truly has made a world of difference on board.
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