Solar Technology

Foldable solar generators

Our foldable solar generators use the most advanced and efficient monocrystalline solar cell technology. Our solar panels, compared to typical glass solar panels, are built from a lightweight composite material and formed as a patent-pending multi-layer structure that is super thin and extra durable. By saving valuable and scarce glass and aluminum materials, our system typically weights only 1/5 of a standard solar system making it mobile, easy and fast to deploy and compact for transportation.

Our foldable solar generators are built with embedded power-cabling and do not require any electrical skills to use. A realible output connectors is the only thing you need to attach to the battery energy storage system or microgrid and start enjoying zero-emission power!

Key advantages

The foldable solar generators can be deployed in seconds – either directly on the ground, or lifted onto shipping containers, roofs or other structures.

The key advantages of our foldable solar generators are: 

A large surface area of solar PV can be deployed from a small, lightweight package = more power for less weight, hassle and transport cost 
The monocrystalline solar cell technology we use is the most efficient way of producing zero-emission solar energy 
A solar mat is deployable by 1 or 2 people in less than a minute! 
This is the best way to get self-sustaining power to the most remote and difficult-to-access places, where continuous delivery of fuel for generators would be impossible or extremely expensive.

Rollable solar generators

Our Rapid Roll is a patented technology for mobile, rapid deployable power needs – a high capacity solar power plant with a rollable tow-out solar field deployable in just 2 minutes. The technology is initially available as a Rapid Roll standalone solar power system (up to 10 kWp). 

The key innovation which enables this step-change improvement in the power capacity and speed of deployment of commercial-scale solar is the creation of a flexible, rollable solar PV array as a single piece “mat” with built-in structural support and power-transmission cabling embedded throughout. This mat can therefore be permanently wired in to our innovative spooling mechanism – which means that all you have to do is unroll and switch on! No cable connections or system commissioning is required on-site as it is all permanently built in to the system.  

Key benefits

Another innovation which makes the Rapid Roll concept possible is a modular, resilient electrical architecture which optimises the performance of individual sections of our “solar mat” for the particular light conditions (due to slope and shading) which may happen to occur when deploying in different locations. For this reason, it’s not necessary to have solar engineers model the specific site and calculate particular solar field positions and configurations before deployment – the Rapid Roll will work anywhere and will make the most out of the set of conditions encountered. 

A modular architecture with many components running in parallel also provides resilience as if one component fails, the rest continue to operate. Because of this, the Rapid Roll is a very reliable power system, even in challenging environments and applications. 

The key benefits the Rapid Roll system provide over typical rigid-panel systems are therefore: 
Speed of deployment – a few minutes instead of many hours or days 
High power capacity from a small box – up to 10x the power capacity of rigid panel systems, due to the large surface area we can very efficiently store on the roll 
Ease of use – permanently integrated, start the system running at the touch of a button 

Energy storage

The core facilitator of any solar or hybrid zero-emission power system is the energy storage sub-system. Both the Fast Fold and the Rapid Roll system include a lithium-ion battery energy storage system (BESS) to deliver high energy density, high performance, safe and cost-effective storage for solar or genset-sourced power. We work with a number of different battery suppliers to offer a range of options across the price vs performance scale. 
 
An essential component of any lithium battery solution to ensure robustness, safety and long battery life is theBattery Management System” (BMS). We work with our battery suppliers to integrate the best BMS possible, ensuring that all cell safety measures are taken and that specified parameters of charge/discharge limits and operating temperatures can never be exceeded. We also ensure the best possible integration with our inverter/energy management systems so that demands on the batteries are managed to ensure that limits are never even approached and to maintain as stable charge states as possibleavoiding needless cycling and hence extending battery life. 
 
Our energy storage system is also modular, enabling variable capacity from 5 kWh up to 100 kWh or more per system. The modularity, with multiple packs running in parallel, again provides both scalability and resilience. 

Hybrid Technology

In the majority of climatic and economic conditions around the world, the optimum Return-on-Investment for off-grid energy can be achieved from a hybrid power system. Renovagen’s HyPER-FST (Hybrid Power Emissions Reduction – Fuel Savings Technology), integrated into Fast Fold or Rapid Roll systems, delivers fuel savings by leveraging auto start-stop control of a diesel generator to reduce the number of running hours – and most importantly runs the generator at its most efficient operating point when it is required. We work with customers’ existing generators so that you continue to obtain value from your existing assets. 

The technology also facilitates the easy supplementation of hybrid power with solar energy – from 0% solar to 99% – depending on location and weather conditions. The presence of the generator eliminates “weather anxiety” and guarantees that backup power will always be available.

Cost saving

Typically fuel savings of 50 % to 95 % can be realised in the HyPER-FST solar-battery-diesel hybrid. Implementing HyPER-FST reduces the battery and solar capacity required to guarantee 24/7/365 power and therefore significantly reduces costs in comparison with a pure-solar off-grid system. Often, any attempt to eliminate the last 5%-10% of fuel savings can be economically unviable as so much additional capacity is required to guarantee solar energy availability during poor weather conditions. Hence the use of HyPER-FST in the majority of scenarios is helping our clients to save costs and to contribute to the CO2 reductions worldwide. 

Our system modelling tools enable the assessment of different hybrid system configurations in different global locations, modelled against a customer’s specific load profile. The model is integrated with an Return-on-Investment calculator so that we can optimise the system balance (solar and battery capacity) to produce the best solution for any given scenario. Please contact us if you’re interested in a free consultation to see how our HyPER-FST based systems will deliver a strong Return-on-Investment in your temporary power applications! 

Scalable Micro-Grids

Our zero-emission systems are designed not only to operate simply as stand-alonebut for multiple systems to operate in parallel to build up larger micro-grids or to function as a part of the clients micro-grid to support their emission-reduction targets. Furthermore, such an approach delivers additional resilience so that in the event of micro-grid interconnections being severed, our system can automatically isolate itself and continue to power local loads from its own solar hybrid power capability. In this way, the micro-grid becomes the medium for sharing energy between a “cloud” of our system rather than simply a power distribution line from centralised sources. 

Ready to start saving on diesel costs and save the environment?