2,700€ and Five Days: How Audren Built a Solar Power Plant and Halved His Bills
Think installing your own solar power plant is a Herculean task involving months of mess, paperwork, and mysterious acronyms? Audren Van Zalk, a self-proclaimed do-it-yourself enthusiast based in a small village in the Lot region, would beg to differ. With a bit of elbow grease and a budget that would make most professionals blush, he managed to cover over half his electricity needs—and slice through his energy bills—with his very own homemade photovoltaic setup.
Fast, Frugal, and Fiercely Independent
Forget the stereotype of endless installation hassles. Audren pulled off the feat in less than a week—”a big weekend for the wooden structure and another for fitting the panels,” he recalls. With around twenty years in the building sector under his belt, he was hardly a rookie in handiwork, yet he was driven by more than experience. “Since I was 15, I wanted to dive into home renewables, but until recently, city life had other plans for me,” he shares, sporting his “do-it-yourself” badge with pride.
Facing soaring energy prices and wary of upcoming tariff hikes, Audren saw a clear opportunity to finally tackle the technical challenge at home. He invested time in brushing up on every photovoltaic standard and regulation—because, as he quips, “I had a base in electricity, but I had to revisit all the specifics for solar.”
How He Did It: Numbers, Know-How, and a Wooden Frame
The setup he landed on was neat and powerful: eight 400 Wc panels mounted on a robust wooden structure he designed and built himself, all nestled in his countryside garden. The total system had a capacity of 3.2 kWc, but was limited by the inverter to 3 kWc to comply with the Enedis convention. His adventure, by the way, is detailed on his social media under “Objectif ZeroCarbone.”
- Material costs: €2,200 for panels, a 5 kW inverter, AC/DC boxes, and delivery
- Wood for structure: €250
- Earth wire: €150
- Hardware: roughly €100
- Total: €2,700
That’s 844 €/kWc—a fraction of what pros charge (typically €1,500–3,000/kWc). “A considerable saving,” he notes, with a nod to fellow handy souls weighing their options.
What about all that red tape? Audren opted for a clever shortcut: all the electricity he doesn’t use instantly is sent into the public grid—for free. Why? To swerve the administrative rigamarole and strict requirements for being paid for surplus electricity. “Getting paid means you need Consuel approval and must meet very strict technical rules. This way, I avoid all that.”
Smart Choices: No Battery Needed When You Have an EV
There’s no battery in Audren’s system, but there is something better—at least in his eyes. His Renault Zoé (with a 22 kWh battery) guzzles most of the surplus during the day. “I didn’t add a battery because my EV takes up a lot of the production,” he explains. “A battery would have doubled the cost and hugely increased the payback time.”
His home features a range of electric gadgets ready to take on solar juice. There’s an electric water heater, and he’s in the process of adding an air-to-air heat pump. For now, he manually diverts solar power to these appliances using connected sockets: “When I know it’s sunny or see a production peak or too much going to the grid, I switch appliances on myself,” he laughs, if only slightly. He plans to automate this with load-shedding systems—eventually.
- Solar orientation: slightly west—not due south—to meet evening energy needs and optimize for practical use. Production ramps up more slowly in the morning but peaks as the day ends.
- Annual photovoltaic generation: ~3,200 kWh
- Renault Zoé annual consumption: 2,000 kWh
- Family’s remaining solar use: 1,200 kWh
- Household annual usage before changes: 11 MWh; after heat pump and control system, expected to fall to 6 MWh (solar meeting about 50% of needs)
Results: Savings, Sustainability, and a No-Guilt Wood Shed
Home for Audren, his partner, and their child is a 200-year-old stone house (90 m², for the curious) warmed by a wood stove and, soon enough, a reversible heat pump to replace the infamous “toaster” radiators. Audren beams, “Everything is electric here; I hardly use hydrocarbons anymore.”
His electricity bill? Around €200 per month, but with projected savings of €450 per year just from solar, he expects to pay off the installation in about five years—excluding the structure, which also doubles as an essential wood storage shed. Who says green energy can’t multitask?
In the end, Audren’s story isn’t just about kilowatts or euros saved. It’s a reminder that—with enough curiosity, patience, and perhaps a weekend or two of sawdust—you can seize energy independence (and maybe have something new to tweet about under #ObjectifZeroCarbone).
