Dan Boyd is a well known builder on St. John. He moved to the Virgin Islands in 1989 to help rebuild after Hurricane Hugo, and has lived here ever since. His solar education began twenty five years ago, when he moved to Lovango Cay, which is totally off-grid and after learning everything he could about solar battery technology, he began building his own systems. Trial and error taught him exactly what works and what doesn’t work on the islands.
DAN’S DIARY OF A STORM
On September 6, 2017, We buttoned up our shack and left our home on Lovango Cay to ride out Hurricane Irma on St John.
Three days later we returned. The damage was not pretty. Our dock was smashed, so we anchored the dingy and swam ashore. The first house we stopped at was the Smith cottage. It is a small cement building that we had rebuilt and where we had installed an off-grid battery system with ground mounted solar panels two years before. The roof was on but there was a lot of water damage inside from rain and from the ocean as the building sits about 60 feet from the waters edge.
I went into the kitchen area and opened the refrigerator. The light was on! We even had ice in the freezer! As it turns out, we were the only home on Lovango with power! The batteries were intact and the inverter and solar charger were fine too! The six panel ground mounted solar array was 100% intact and producing power!
I attribute the success of this system surviving the storm to the fact that we BOLT our panels to the solar rails. We do not use panel clips! We even had many of our clients call us after the storm to tell us that our roof mounted solar systems saved their roofs.
Solergy has been in the Virgin Islands for over 30 years and we plan on being here for a long, long time.
We have the reputation for being the best solar energy company in the Virgin Islands.
Contact us to discuss your needs.
(340) 642-0351