Don't forget to buy hurricane, wind, and flood insurance on top of your regular homeowner's policy! I can't even begin to image how much that is going to cost on a 7,000 sqft house. Ouch.

If toy are building a 7,000 sqft house, why doesn't your electrical engineer figure out the schematics for solar power?

thank you for your comment. yes, engineer will figure out, but I just like to educate myself and get different opinions.

Hello Cecelia, during the architecture process you may include many design elements that can help reduce the overall electrical load of the house before the calculation for the PV panels are taken into consideration. As a rule of thumb in order to maximize the photovoltaic system capacity you may wish to implement more insulation in exterior walls (specially east/west) and the roof to lower A/C loads, that amount to most of the electrical load of the house. Also you may want to implement overhangs or exterior shading on the windows and/or use insulated windows to lower the sun heat to the inside of the house. Using high SRI roofing and light colors on the outside will also help as well as using low albedo surfaces for ground cover and implementing planting areas around the house will help with the interior heat load.

In terms of cost for solar in Puerto Rico it has come down in recent years and there are tax incentives for PV panels as well as for the batteries that have been in place for the last couple of years that may help as well. It hasn't been as easily accesible in PR as in the past 5-7 years so that is why I believe it isn't used as much as in the mainland. It is becoming more and more common, as is the batteries use after hurricane Maria. In your PV design you may want to include batteries as well as a generator that may complement each other in case of power failure so fuel or gas is not as expensive as it would be if you were running the house completely by the generator and the size of the generator can be smaller as well.

Hope this information helps, and if there are any questions that arise from my comment I am happy to help.

Cecelia. In addition to Camila's responce, you have a great need for solar and good place for utilization. Engage an architect with experience in solar homes. Are you interested in passive or active solar or both? Siting, envelope and system engineering need to be addressed simultaneously in order to optimize potential. I don't believe PR power providers offer a grid tie option as we have here which leads me to speculate you are looking at PV (photovoltiac) array with storage. I would not recommend a standby generator unless you are requiring 100% continuous service. With your climate and insolaration values you would be able to generate and store adequate power for your home. With that said you are going to need a large solar system. Assuming an energy efficient build, I'm guessing you would demand about 30-40KW which relates to about 150 panels (260w/panel). Panel placement would be paramount and a roof top install would be my last resort. Assuming you have adequate land I would explore a ground mount or tower mount system. The more you know about solar power, the closer you will be to optimization.

BTW- We have an all electric solar home in NC. 9.6kw, 36 panel, 3 tower, grid tied PV system currently meeting all our energy needs. Approaching our first year of operation in three weeks with zero energy costs and 451 kwh credits forward.

We used solar lighting in our home constructed last year & are loving it. If interested, check out PMMI Lighting.