In mid 2012, Infinite Energy participated in the Future Farm Australia 2050 Research Partnership with the University of Western Australia’s School of Electrical, Electronic & Computer Engineering, German Solar PV manufacturer Q-Cells and GreenSense. The Project’s vision is “to imagine the best-practice farm for 2050, and do it now.” Details of the project are available on the UWA website.
Project gallery
As part of the initiative, UWA purchased a farm at Pingelly, 150km south east of Perth. The solar component involves providing the new state of the art Farm Manager’s residence with a stand alone Solar PV system which will supply 100% of the home’s electricity needs. As well as providing a 100% off-grid solar power solution to the Farm Manager’s residence, the solar array will also form the basis of an on-going research project which will evaluate different Solar PV technologies in a real world environment.
About the System
- The “off-grid” system is totally independent from the electricity grid (which is approximately 1km away) and will provide 100% of the energy requirements for the large modern farmhouse constructed at the site.
- The house’s energy is totally supplied by the solar PV system – no additional generators are used.
- The system has a 3 day redundancy meaning that the house can run for 3 days if there was no sun or a system malfunction.
- The system features 2 x 5kw ground mounted solar arrays (total 10kw) together with a battery backup system.
- The system production and homestead power usage is monitored remotely via the web using the GreenSense View platform.
Components used:
- 1 x 5kw Solar PV system utilising 22 x 235W Q-Cells Q-Pro G2 (Poly-crystaline) modules with an SMA SunnyBoy 5000TL inverter.
- 1 x 5kw Solar PV system utilising 56 x 90W Q-Cells Q-Smart modules (Thin-Film) with an SMA SMC 5000A inverter.
- 3 x SMA Sunny Island 5048
- Clenergy Solar Terrace 3 Mounting System
- 24 x Hoppecke 8 OpzV Solar.Power 1000 batteries
- Greensense View Monitoring Platform.
