Protect Yourself from power outages from wind and storm damage

Windy winter weather tends to bring trees down on power lines, cutting off your power supply as many people in Victoria have discovered recently. Many people in Gippsland and the Dandenongs are still without power a week after the storm that raged across Victoria on 9th June.

For many people the need to protect themselves from power outages is becoming a more and more common occurrence and it is not unusual for it to take days for the power to be reconnected, particularly if you are not on a main line and other lines take priority.

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Emergency energy storage to Protect Yourself from bushfire power outages

During bushfires power is often lost to many areas and sometimes is not returned for days or weeks at a time. At these times communities often have to rely on generators, especially if, as in the devastating 2019-2020 Australian bushfires roads are cut off to complete communities for extended periods of time.

     Emergency Problems

  • Bushfires and other emergencies cause loss of grid electricity
  • No power for communications
  • No power for medical and other health supplies
  • No power for food storage fresh or frozen
  • No power for pumps for clean water
  • Inability to power petrol pumps for fuel for emergency evacuations

     Solution – Earthworker Emergency container

  • Can supply emergency power
  • Uses safe non-flammable SoNick battery technology
  • Can be setup in short period once on site
  • Can be powered by solar, wind or diesel backup
  • Can be configurable to suit application
  • Can be delivered by plane, helicopter, truck or boat.
Continue reading “Emergency energy storage to Protect Yourself from bushfire power outages”

Protect Yourself from bushfire power outages

During bushfires power is often lost to many areas and sometimes is not returned for days or weeks at a time. At these times communities often have to rely on generators, especially if, as in the devastating 2019-2020 Australian bushfires roads are cut off to complete communities for extended periods of time.

Strong winds also tend to bring trees down on power lines, again cutting off your power supply

Continue reading “Protect Yourself from bushfire power outages”

Not all battery inverters are equal

With the installation of energy storage systems most people look at the battery and concentrate on that but in reality the battery inverter is an integral part of any energy storage system and will dictate much of the energy storage systems operations.

Often when an energy storage system isn’t working properly the fault lies with the inverter and not the battery.

Inverter power is measured in kVA or volt amps.

The battery inverter takes power from the solar PV array (solar inverter or MPPT) and battery which can be of different voltages and converts it to 240V for household of business use.

Solar inverters are designed to work with solar PV arrays and battery inverters are designed to work with energy storage batteries. Hybrid inverters are also coming onto the market that combine both solar PV and battery conversions.

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Salt batteries – the only chemistry UL9540A certified for safety

More and more people are recognising that one of the major issues with energy storage batteries are the dangers with fires and explosions particularly associated with thermal runaway (self-sustaining fires). This has become particularly relevant as people are considering installing the many lithium ion battery technologies in their houses or businesses and are becoming aware of the possibility of the dangers associated with this.

Standards Australia has been working on new installation standards “AS-NZ 5139_2019” which will try and address this issue but there is still a lot of discussion around whether the new installation restrictions are too strict or are really looking at individual battery characteristics correctly and fairly.

International Standard “UL9540A” has been developed to independently examine Fire Risk with Battery Cells and Evaluate Thermal Runaway Fire Propagation in Battery Energy Storage Systems.

Salt batteries – the only chemistry UL9540A certified for fire safety
Continue reading “Salt batteries – the only chemistry UL9540A certified for safety”

Questions to ask about installing an energy storage system

Most people that are looking at installing an energy storage system (battery and battery inverter) don’t realise that every installation is different and there is no one size fits all. Installations are very dependent on whether there is already solar PV in place and the current electrical wiring situation at the premises.

With solar PV installations as long as you have suitable roof space you can install a system and the questions that need deciding are finding a reliable supplier / installer, working out the size of the PV system needed according to electricity usage and roof space and the size of the inverter required.

With an energy storage system it is much more complicated. Among the considerations are;

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Medical Centre – Commercial Case Study using SoNick batteries

The medical centre was to be refurbished and part of the upgrade was to install a PV system with battery storage. The difficulty was allocating the space for battery storage that was safe for patients as well as staff. As is usual in a medical centre space is a premium and is used for medical related purposes as a priority.

A space was identified under the stairwell as the only realistic place to house the batteries and inverters. This limited the type of battery storage due to both space and safety requirements. Continue reading “Medical Centre – Commercial Case Study using SoNick batteries”

SoNick battery powers Sustainable Living Festival “Off the Grid” tent

 

GridEdge was recently asked to power Melbourne’s 3 day Sustainable Living Festival’s “Off the Grid” tent with our clean energy trailer with its Sodium nickel chloride (SoNick) battery .

This annual festival, is held at Melbourne’s Federation Square and runs along the Yarra river with many stalls showcasing renewable energy, sustainable living practices and gardening and permaculture information.

There are several tents that run educational talks throughout the festival. Continue reading “SoNick battery powers Sustainable Living Festival “Off the Grid” tent”

Battery storage uptake by households surges as grid costs soar

 

Battery storage systems being installed in Australia look set to confirm earlier predictions that battery installations will treble in 2017.

New data from the SunWiz 2017 Mid-Year Battery Report shows more than 7000 battery installations took place across Australia in the first six month of 2017.  By contrast there were 6500 installations recorded for all of 2016. Current projections say Australia is headed for a total of more than 20,000 energy storage battery installations by the end of 2017. Continue reading “Battery storage uptake by households surges as grid costs soar”

Accelerating Climate Action by Australian States

 

Amongst the G20 countries, Australia’s emission reduction target – a reduction of 26-28% on a 2005 baseline – is unusually weak, nowhere near what is required for us to play our fair share in meeting 2°C Paris target.

The IPCC uses a synthesis of thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers to assess the degree of risk at increasing levels of global average temperature.

› There is a significant difference in the degree of risk between the 1.5°C and 2.0°C Paris targets, with higher risks of damage to natural ecosystems and more intense and/or frequent extreme weather events for the 2.0°C target.
Continue reading “Accelerating Climate Action by Australian States”