Off-Grid Resort Build

A stretch of coast in northern Palawan with no road, no grid and no piped water. The nearest hardware store is a 40-minute boat ride away, and the landing beach is only usable around high tide.

The brief we gave ourselves: a small resort that runs on sun and rain, is built mostly by people from the next barangay, and can be run by a caretaker when we’re not there.

An 18 kWp solar array with 48 kWh of LiFePO₄ storage, sized to ride out a full habagat week with the generator as the last resort.

12,000 litres of rainwater catchment plus a shallow well, with filtration and a pump system that has failed — and been fixed — enough times to be boring.

Modular timber and bamboo structures designed around what fits on a bangka and what two people can carry up a beach.

An inverter overheating in a sealed room. A pump controller lost to a lightning strike across the bay. Salt corroding every exposed connector. A battery monitor that was wrong by 40 points. Ants in the charge controller.

Every one of these is written up in the stories. None of them were the solar panels.

Finish villas 3 and 4 before the next habagat. Run a full wet season with guests on site before opening properly. Hand more of the daily operation to the caretaker and the agent layer.