Energy Alternatives
Online Store Resources Company E-services
Home Solar Wind Micro Hydro Batteries Inverters Water Pumping Lighting Appliances Catalogue Check Out Cart Home Email

GGL Resouces Corp has a remote mining exploration camp located about 200km from Yellowknife. A single 16kW diesel generator originally powered the twenty-person camp. Due to the rising costs of diesel and costly transportation to a very remote site, they installed an inverter/battery power system with wind power and solar power backup in the mid 90's to reduce their fuel consumption. In September 2010, this power system suffered from a lightning strike that damaged almost every piece of electrical equipment connected to it.

Recognizing their old system suffered from sub-optimal design, they called EA to design and replace this system on a short timeline.

Their original system used a 3-phase 208V generator with a single-phase 120V inverter connected to only one leg of the generator and only able to provide power to 1/3 of the camp. Since they have no 3-phase loads and the generator needed a new voltage regulator, we took this opportunity to reconfigure the generator for 120/240V split-phase power. We then upgraded their inverter to a 6kW Xantrex XW-series inverter with standard 120/240V input and output. With this upgrade, the entire camp can now be powered through the inverter.

The solar power and wind power are used to charge the batteries and further reduce the generator run time and fuel consumption.

Power system components:
• Xantrex XW6048 inverter 6kW with 100A 48VDC battery charger
• 8 x AGM-L16 sealed maintenance-free batteries for 20kWh capacity at 48VDC
• 4 x Sharp Solar SH170, 170W solar modules (up to 4kWh/day production)
• Air-X 400W wind turbine (about 0.8kWh/day with 12mph wind speeds)
• Whisper 200 1,000W wind turbine (about 6kWh/day with 12mph wind speeds)
• Triple redundancy lightning arrestors for system protection
• Automatic generator start - the inverter decides when it needs to run based on load or battery capacity.

EA pre-programmed the inverter and pre-assembled about 80% of the power equipment in our shop. This made the installation much less complicated for their onsite electrician. We were also able to provide remote technical support to their onsite electrician via a satellite phone during the installation.


 



Contact Energy Alternatives - (250) 846-9888 • Smithers, British Columbia Canada V0J 2X2
© Copyright 2013 EA Energy Alternatives Ltd.
Design & Resources - Articles, Troubleshooting, Education, FAQ's, System Design, Design Tools, Conservation, Catalogue Download.
Company - Installations, About EA, Testimonials, Privacy Statement, Homepage s
Catalogue - Systems, Photovoltaics, Wind, Microhydro, Inverters, Batteries, Battery Chargers, Balance of Systems, Pumps, Generators, Books & Education