greenpro Africa specialties : alternative energy design
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One of Greenpro Africa's strong specializations is to evaluate the project and its environment to design the most practical and effective alternative energy solution for the venture Most large-scale project in Africa will not have access to on-grid power and will require a complete power supply design for the specific project.
Should the venture host a few thousand cows, Greenpro Africa could utilize the cattle dung in a dung digester to produce methane gas to supply electricity to the farm. If the agriculture venture is adjacent a permanent river with strong flowing water, the answer could be a hydro power solution. The Greenpro Africa engineering team will properly also consider a solar power solution with standby generator capacity should it fit the application best. If the area caters for constant strong winds, the engineering team will consider the opportunity to install wind generation or a combination thereof with other alternative energy solutions.
The Greenpro Africa electrical engineering team has many years of the design, installation, commissioning, and maintenance of various green or alternative energy solutions under their belt.
The Greenpro Africa team also tested and evaluated the most effective and robust alternative energy technical solutions for Africa's tough environment. Many solid distribution, professional services and supply partnerships are established over the years that makes the Greenpro Africa's turn-key solutions reliable, of high quality and state-of-the-art.
ENERGY FOCUSSED BUSINESS SYSTEMS
Greenpro Africa's history of approaching renewable energy generation to establish a sustainable power supply that meets the business needs, has led us to engage with customers on a much broader scale. This naturally led us to establish Greenpro Africa Associates as an engineering network of Electrical, Chemical, Mechanical, Civil and Agricultural experts that can provide turnkey solutions to businesses who want to mitigate their risk against a deteriorating power supply with unsustainable cost increases.
Our service offering expanded from integrated solar power, backup, and generation systems to include corrosion protection, water treatment, and advanced agricultural systems.
Our core Greenpro Africa Technologies Division focus on renewable energy, energy efficient water treatment and advanced Controlled Environment Farming (CEF) systems.
Greenpro Africa Associates adds Project management, Quality assurance, Asset tracking and Change management to this technical skill to offer a turnkey business opportunity development service to customers. We engage at the business model development level and manage opportunity through to an operational environment with installed processes and systems to run a successful business.
WHAT IS A SOLAR POWER (PV) SYSTEM?
When saying PV system, we talk about two things, with possibly a 3rd component:
- GENERATION PART - A PV System consisting of panels with its associated electronics, cabling, and switchgear. This part generates power.
- STORAGE PART - An inverter-battery system consisting of batteries with its associated electronic, cabling and switchgear.
- GENERATOR - A standby generator as backup during long power failures and heavy cloud periods.
Depending on your goal, you may need the one or the other or both. Adding a generator is a low capital addition, with high operating costs. If you want to run a system with all components, you must incorporate additional control system to manage the generator runtime and loading, the battery discharge cycling, and the solar power delivery as one integrated system. The following diagram shows a complete System with Generation part and a Storage part.
LET'S LOOK AT THE PV GENERATION PART FIRST
Sunny South Africa is an ideal location for Solar (PV) power generation. We can get about 65% more power from the same PV system than in Europe. The main components of a PV system are the solar panel and the inverter.
THE PANELS
You are buying panels for 25 years so make sure the supplier is credible. And yes, many Chinese panels are very good, BUT those good manufacturers are represented in the country, or they have long relationships with local suppliers. Bloomberg new energy finance corporation rank solar panel manufacturers in terms of their bankability or financial stability. It is worth considering their ratings.
Don't be too hung-up on the panel power rating. Higher power panels are simply bigger, and the designer may need to use different panels to suit the inverter better.
THE CONTROLLER (OR INVERTER)
Inverters vary greatly in price, features, quality, and performance. It is probably the most important component of the system and the features must match the requirement.
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