The bill first. Then the roof.
A useful solar proposal in Ghana starts with when the building uses power, which circuits must survive an outage, and what the roof will actually carry. Techengy assesses those conditions before selecting panels, inverter capacity or storage — so the quotation describes your load, not a round number.
Five stages before any equipment is finalised.
Read twelve months of bills
One cool-season ECG bill will undersize air-conditioning. We take a year where we can, split base load from daytime load from evening load, and treat the monthly kWh as the start of the conversation rather than the design.
Name the circuits that must stay on
Lighting in occupied rooms, refrigeration, network, security, a water pump, perhaps one air-conditioner. That list is shorter than most people assume, and writing it down is what keeps the battery specification honest.
Survey the roof and the supply
Orientation near the equator is more forgiving than shading. A tank, parapet, neighbouring wall or a roof that needs replacing within a few years will change the design more than a brochure array size will.
Separate generation from backup
Daytime load can be served by the array. Evening load and outages are a battery and essential-board decision. Mixing those two questions into one “kW system” is how quotations disappoint later.
Issue a written design basis
Daily kWh, daytime fraction, assumed generation, essential circuits, and what is not on backup. A quotation that cannot show those figures has not been sized. We put them in the proposal so you can hold us to them.
Two identical bills can need two different systems.
Offices generate when they consume
A shop, office or school is largely a daytime load. The array does the work; the battery is for outages. Households that empty at 07:00 and fill at 18:00 are the opposite.
Air conditioning is the decision point
It is usually what separates a modest installation from an expensive one. Whether it sits on backup is a design choice, not a default, and it should be made before anyone prices a battery.
Tariffs move. The method should not.
PURC reviews ECG tariffs quarterly. A proposal that only quotes a payback year, with no tariff band or daily kWh behind it, will not survive the next review. We design from the load; the tariff is how that load is valued, and it should be restated when it changes.
Load, roof, supply, priorities.
- Bill and load analysis — monthly kWh, seasonal swing, and a split into base, daytime and evening load
- Essential circuits — the backup board is chosen, not assumed to be the whole building
- Roof and structure — usable area, shading, covering condition, and whether tiles, metal or a building-integrated roof is even in play
- Electrical supply — single or three-phase, existing switchgear, and where a hybrid inverter would actually sit
- Design basis in writing — the assumptions the quotation is built on, so they can be compared with anyone else’s
Yield, savings and payback depend on the building, the tariff in force, shading and how the system is used. We do not publish a standard package price or a guaranteed payback period.
Already know you need storage?
Hybrid inverters and batteries are specified after the load and the essential circuits are known. The storage page explains how we separate power from capacity.
See hybrid inverters and storageRead these before you send the drawings.
Straight answers.
What bills do you need?
Twelve months of ECG bills if you have them. One cool-season bill will undersize air-conditioning. We split base load from daytime load from evening load, and treat the monthly kWh as the start of the conversation rather than the design.
Do you publish a standard solar package price?
No. We do not publish a standard package price or a guaranteed payback period. Yield, savings and payback depend on the building, the tariff in force, shading and how the system is used.
What comes first — the roof or the bill?
The bill first, then the roof. A useful solar proposal in Ghana starts with when the building uses power, which circuits must survive an outage, and what the roof will actually carry.
Is air conditioning always on backup?
No. Air conditioning is usually what separates a modest installation from an expensive one. Whether it sits on backup is a design choice, not a default, and it should be made before anyone prices a battery.
Send the bills. Or the address.
Twelve months of ECG bills if you have them, the roof type, and which rooms you refuse to lose in an outage. That is enough for us to start the design basis.