Floating Solar Panels conserve water while flooding grid with Energy

That’s the situation at Far Niente Vineyards in Oakville, where nearly 1,000 solar panels have been grouped together, floating on a large irrigation pond.


Solar panels at Far Niente Winery (CBS)

“We don’t want to take vineyards out of production. Our livelihood here is winemaking,” said Greg Allen, President of Far Niente Winery.

Far Niente is in the heart of the Napa Valley, home to some of the most expensive farmland in the nation. It’s not land you want to cover in solar. The estate is also a national landmark, so no panels there either. But the pond surface was open.

The system helps the drought too by reducing evaporation from the pond by providing shade. The proximity to the water also keeps the panels cooler and more efficient than they would otherwise be.

“We believe it’s the first example of a grid connected floating solar array in the world,” said Allen.

It’s not a demonstration project either, the system is making real juice: 396 kilowatts when we visited earlier this week.

“The system is rated for 400 so I think we are doing pretty well,” said Allen.

That output is nearly four times what the winery uses on a daily basis, meaning the power meter is spinning backward pretty quickly.

“To me this is just a no brainier,” said Geof Syphers, CEO Sonoma Clean Power, who sees this catching on quickly. “Statewide this could be one hundred to five hundred times more around California than we are building right now.

The winery still receives a bill from PG&E, but the balance recently has been zero.

Source: CBS

SESB Purchased 14 Mobile Gensets to counter power outage

In a nutshell this acquisition would mean reduction in power supply interruptions and faster relief to the consumers. This is achieved supposedly with faster response via deployment of smaller gensets but larger in numbers, to cover more strategic and critical areas.

Reading today's local dailies (7 Sept), you read and get what's necessary for general information. But from technical standpoint, I was a bit frustrated that none of the three papers (NST, Borneo Post & Daily Express) give sufficient information about the mobile gensets technical information apart from stating the obvious -- generator capacity and number of sets. Then again, that is all that matters to the general public, I suppose.

Too bad. Had I known of the event earlier I would not have hesitated to walk in as spectator.



WZS PowerGen handing over the trucks to SESB. Photo: NST Online


Anyway, digesting what the reporters reported in their respective dailies, here's a hint of the mobile power unit:

Generator set capacity : 500kW each
Engine manufacturer : na
Alternator manufacturer : na
Designed & integrated by : WZS PowerGen Sdn Bhd
Generator engine emission standard : Euro 3
Gross mobile unit weight : 16 tonnes
Fuel tank size : 2,000 litres
Up time (with continuous use) : 10 hours
Number of sets : 14
Total cost : RM12 mil ($3 mil)
Received now : 7 trucks
To receive in Oct 2016 : 7 trucks (expected)
Each generator set will power up : 200 to 300 homes

Having 14 trucks with capacity of 500kW each, SESB will now have 'additional' generating capacity of 7MW at its disposal to attend to power interrupted areas. So, when there are scheduled power outages which normally last for 8 hours in most cases, this new truck loaded with power generator will be able to last that long.

In my own experience in Kota Kinabalu and Penampang areas, when requested, SESB would send their "Tenaga segera" mobile genset to cater for our industrial power need.

“Before this, we would have to call our contractors and settle payments before we are able to respond to power supply interruption reports but with these 14 new mobile units, we can go together which would cut down response time by half.”- Muhamad Nazri Pazil, Senior General Manager (Asset management), SESB

Source: The Green Mechanics