In the Shire of Gingin 1.5 hours north of Perth, is Bethel Estate. Consisting of a lime orchard and farm-stay business over 12 hectares – the owners have been working towards fulfilling their desire to be a self-sufficient, clean energy operation using as many renewable and environmentally friendly practices as possible.
Having installed a 15kW AC grid-tied solar system, they soon realised that they were just giving away most of the power they generated to the local utility – a wasted resource as far as they were concerned.
At RBSS we hear this realisation from solar system owners all the time – and it’s an example of the “Renewable Network System” not rewarding small PV up-takers with their energy contribution to the network. Governments persist in providing tax-free grants to large corporates so they can build huge environmentally devastating solar-farms, while leaving millions of small businesses and home-owners with nothing.
We believe there is no reason to give all that energy away, when you could be using it all for your own needs.
Working to maximise the owner’s current setup, RBSS designed a 40kWh battery energy storage system using Redflow’s third generation zinc-bromine flow batteries. Works have commenced at Bethel Estate who will soon be off-grid and capturing all the energy from their solar system and storing it for their own use – just one more piece in place in creating their own self-sufficient sanctuary.
We will post more updates as we near completion.
System Design
4 x 10kWh Redflow ZBM3 batteries
20kW Solar array (15kW existing + 5kW additional) DC coupled
3 x 10kVA Victron Quattro Inverters – 3 Phase arrangement
1 x Victron MPPT solar charge controllers
1 x Victron Cerbo GX
1 x 22kVA 3-Phase Genset Back-up
1 x Fronius 15kW 3-Phase AC Coupled Inverter (existing)
