Solar Power System Upgrade!
Thanks to everyone who donated to our Solar campaign last year!
We have recently completed the successful installation of the new equipment, which is now fully functional, and powering BFREE into the future.
The transport of all the equipment to the remote location of the field station wasn’t easy, as the rains that have continued during the early part of this year made road conditions challenging. But, as we like to say at BFREE, if it’s not hard, we don’t do it!
With the addition of 30 solar panels to our existing 24 panels, we now have the generating capacity to produce 21 kilowatts of power, tripling our production capacity.
In our power room, there is a new 15kWh inverter for better load management and switching. We can now use an app to monitor real-time operation of solar production, battery levels, load consumption and other metrics. This will help us figure out when we use the most energy, so we can strategize conservation measures.
Another new component in the power room is a 10-pack lithium ion battery bank totaling 50kWh of storage. This will allow us to keep the entire field station operating including freezers, computers, lights, fans, all electrical needs, even on rainy days. We are happy that the engineers were able to better integrate our back-up generator for smoother switching. We don’t use a lot of power in the rainy season, but it is important to keep the essential systems online when the sun doesn’t come out for several days in a row.
We would like to extend special thanks to Zoo New England, Nature Trust of the Americas, The Gregory Family Foundation, Diana Foster, Jamie Rotenberg, Vibeke Olson, and the many individuals who responded to our matching campaign to support this important upgrade. You are all very appreciated.
