Off-grid Electrification & Street Lightning
We have long experience in carrying out remote off grid electrification for following applications:
Village Electrification
The villages which are located in off-grid areas where electrical line connection is not available or is not possible due to difficult terrain are electrified by installing a central wind solar hybrid power plant.
A combination of wind turbines & solar arrays generate electricity (operated through respective controllers) and charge a large tubular battery bank which in turn supplies AC power through a large capacity industrial grade grid sinewave inverter.
The single phase 220V or three phase 440V AC power is distributed throughout the village by overhead wires on supporting poles and fed into each house. Load limiters can be installed at each output point to ensure that no house draws higher than permitted electrical power.
In an average windy area having more than 4.5m/s annual average wind speed, a 10kw wind solar hybrid power plant can provide the electrical power requirements for atleast 20 small houses with each house consuming around 1.5 kwh or more energy per day for operating their CFL lights, small television or computer and fan. For villages having 100 such houses, a 50kw wind solar hybrid power plant would be sufficient. The power plant size will be reduced in propotion to the local average wind speed. For example the same 100 houses with same electrical loads, will require only 25kw wind solar hybrid power plant if they are located in an area where the annual average wind speed is 6.3m/s.
Centrally located power plants perform better than individual houses having small wind turbines or small solar home lighting systems since the central power plants have large capacity control/equipment which are more robust than smaller capacity solar/wind power plants and also central power plants can be monitored and maintained daily for best performance.
New Technologies
- Central power plants can also be monitored from anywhere by remote monitoring through GPRS/internet to ensure preventative maintainence and low down time.
- In a scheme where consumers are supposed to pay for the electricy consumption, the central wind solar hybrid power plants and their distribution system can be equipped with smart cards for consumers just like prepaid mobile phone card system.
Street Lighting System
For off-grid locations wind solar powered street lights are quite popular. Luminous Renewable Energy Solutions offers two alternatives
- Street light mounted AIRX400 with solar panel.
In this system, each street light pole has one small AIRX400 wind turbine with 50W solar module and a battery with electronic timer etc.
In moderately windy areas, enough power is generated to light up a 70W halogen street light from dusk to dawn. Where modern LED lighting street light of 20W or less are used, three such street lights can be powered by one set of AIRX400 with solar panels. - More than 50-100 street lights can be powered by a single 5kw or 10kw wind solar hybrid central power plant as explained earlier.
In many countries, the street lights on the sea beaches and coast lines have been and can be powered at zero cost of power by utilizing one of the two systems mentioned above.
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