Solar Technology Designer's Website

"Iron Gron's" Solar Fortress. Hyden, Western Australia. Latitude 32 degrees South.

Iron Gron is a man of steel......Master of the dozing wheel.
Grader's, truck's and crane hath he......From fossil fuel's he yearned to flee.
His home from nature's sewer is free !

Commissioned April, 2004. Deep in the semi arid wilderness of Arrakis. Double story, Futuristic medieval fortress, straight out of Dr Who ! Iron walls with wooden "Keep"....for Iron Gron's family safe to sleep. Iron Gron ( Beshy ) is a mighty warrior, with a soft heart.....surrounding himself with, and defending natures creatures....No harm will'st befall even they so small !

ADVANCED ENERGY SYSTEMS.

24 x UNI-SUN US-64 Advanced, thin film, triple junction photon collectors. ( 1536 peak watts ) Equivalent to 1900 watts of obsolete crystalline "space junk" at 50 degrees C cell operating temp. ( Typical )
Nett daily energy production, after system losses is 7000 watt-hours in summer, and 4500 watt-hours in Winter. ( 6000 watt-hours at mid season equinox ) Photon collectors are wired in series "Quads" ( 48 Volts ) , and "triple splayed", for superior sky dome coverage. This delivers superior performance under all cloud permutations, and allows the exceptional, diffuse radiation absorption capabilities of the UNI-SUN modules to be realized.

1 x Plasmatronic PL-40 regulator / controller, with SH 200 shunt and PLS adaptor. Allows defenders to monitor energy flows in and out of the fortress's energy storage system at all times. The current measurement shunt, is placed in either the + or - battery feed to the inverter, and develops a tiny voltage, proportional to current ( E = I / R. Ohm's law ), which is sensed by the PLS adaptor, ( Analogue to digital converter ) and turned into pulses, which register on the PL-40 as amp-hours consumed by the inverter and its A.C loads.
24 x EXIDE 1080 Ampere Hour, lead / acid cells, wired in series to yield 48 V x 1080 A/H = 51,840 Watt-hours ( 51.84 Kwh ) These are the smallest Exide cells with twin + & twin - terminals ( dual redundant), which reduces the possibility of arcing, and battery explosion if a battery link becomes loose. Nevertheless, this technology is now dated, and potentially very dangerous in a domestic situation. In our opinion, large, open vented batteries are only suitable for industrial use, by trained personnel due to the large acid volume, explosive hazard and frequent maintenance required. Batteries of this type have their origins in the electric fork lift industry.
1 x P.S.A RAP5 48 Volt D.C to 240 Volt A.C True Sine Wave, Inverter / Charger / Booster.5000 watts continuous rating,
( 5 KVA ) 15000 watts surge ( 15 KVA ) The RAP5 transforms to battery charging mode, to boost charge the battery cells at 70 Amps x 55 Volts = 3850 watts per hour ( 3.85 KVA ) during sustained overcast weather, and can synchronize its 240 Volt A.C output with the backup 7 KVA diesel generator, and combine both their energies up to 12 KVA continuous rating.