PowerCrate® had a perfect outing last week at Southern Field Days…
“Departed on Friday, delivered on Monday, deployed on Tuesday, demo’ed on Wednesday…..”
It’s a common theme of ours. PowerCrate is a turnkey system housed in a portable 20ft container module and transportable with standard freight services. We love the field day demos because they allow us to perfectly illustrate this portability feature. In this particular case the PowerCrate was picked up by a HIAB and taken to the freight depot in Dunedin, from where it was transported by a curtain sider truck to the Gore depot. It was then taken by HIAB and dropped off at the Waimumu site on the Monday (we had sent the driver a site layout diagram earlier). Bill and Matt then arrived at noon on Tuesday and by 3pm everything was go…
PowerCrate deploys or stows in about 2 hours . Panels are folded out and turbine is folded up! (see demo here) In these site demonstrations we use the external all-weather receptacles on the far end of the enclosure to bring power into the marquee tent which we then use to power our electronic devices, video screens, and heaters. Just like a festival application!
And this was a wonderful festival. We had many conversations with Southlanders and visitors further afield and discussed a myriad of applications such as solutions for lifestyle blocks with high connection costs, agri-tourism ventures for electric bikes, power for remote shearing sheds and even remote hydrogen production. We took turns between the PowerCrate site and our satellite site near the main building from where we could sneak away for a few samples of the local fare of lamb or whiskey, or visit the electric motor bike site (UBCO) and the hydrogen co-fuel truck (H.W. Richardson).
Whether for a temporary project such as an outdoor concert or a permanent establishment such as a rural cabin, the same PowerCrate can be used. The enclosure is built with EV-lution (also in Dunedin) and can be treated as a black box (although it is white….) – solar and wind power IN and 240 VAC OUT. The current architecture supports at least 56 kWh of battery storage and up to 10 kVA output. System performance can be monitored either in the enclosure with the touch screen or remotely using a handy phone app.
And that’s it. “…running on Thursday, repacked on Friday and returned on Monday”. Thank you Southern Field Days!
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