Enabling technologies 05: Commercialisation of solar charge control technology
Renewable Energy Commercialisation in Australia, Australian Greenhouse Office, 2003
NOTE: The status of these projects will have changed since the time of publication, and project contacts may also have changed.
Plasmatronics expects that commercialisation of its new solar charge regulators will have far-reaching global benefits for applications relying on solar energy and will open up large export opportunities for the company.
Plasmatronics Pty Ltd is a Melbourne-based company that specialises in the design and manufacture of electronic regulating and metering devices for solar power systems. With the support of a grant of $125,000 from the Renewable Energy Commercialisation Program, the company is undertaking the commercialisation of a new generation of solar charge regulators that prevent the batteries used in solar energy storage from becoming overcharged. The company spent three years undertaking intensive research to develop this innovative device, which can be operated as a series-switching, pulse width modulated or shunt regulator.
The new regulator's load switch and timer have the additional benefit of greater application versatility, which enables it to function as a controller for many related applications such as lighting, watering and pumping.
Solar-powered or photovoltaic electric power systems are themselves quite simple, converting sunlight into electrical energy through the use of a photovoltaic panel. In the past, however, the systems have been complicated with respect to charging and storing of energy in the attached battery.
If the photovoltaic panel is left connected to a battery, the battery slowly charges. If the energy being put in exceeds the energy being used, the battery will eventually become fully charged. But if this continues, the battery will ultimately overcharge and be damaged by the corrosion of its plates and loss of electrolyte.
Most current battery charge regulators involve an electronic switch that senses when the battery is full and either disconnects the panel from the battery or diverts the energy. However, these regulators can misread the state of the battery's charge resulting in the battery being either under or overcharged. These regulators also tend to produce other annoying application issues such as flickering in voltage of connected sensitive equipment or sometimes radio interference.
The company's aim was to find a simple, reliable and inexpensive way to implement intelligent care of the battery. Plasmatronics decided to base the design around a small micro controller integrated circuit. This single chip microprocessor controls all the operations of the regulator. It allows all the pieces of information about the battery state and charge history to be easily gathered, stored and interpreted. This provides users with useful information enabling them to improve their use of power generated and maximise the system's efficiency. The end result is a better managed system with a lower unit cost for power delivered.
Plasmatronics is using the grant to repackage the regulator into an easy to use integrated modular system that can be readily upgraded as the user installs additional solar panels. The company plans to tool up its existing production facility to enable commercial manufacturing of the product, which is currently undergoing certification for the European Community to enable it to compete on the European market. To date, Plasmatronics is the only manufacturer to have developed a product with Chinese language user interface, aimed at penetrating the large Chinese market.
The company believes that the commercialisation of this new technology is set to make solar-electric power systems far more affordable by lowering the unit cost of the energy delivered.
For more information please contact
Mr Alan Hutchison
Plasmatronics Pty Ltd
14 Gipps Street
Collingwood VIC 3066
Tel (03) 9486 9902
Fax (03) 9486 9903
Email admin@plasmatronics.com.au
Internet www.plasmatronics.com.au
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