Customer
Graham and Gina Darlow – Horizon Power customer
Location
Condingup, 67 kilometres east of Esperance, Western Australia
Situation
Crop and livestock farmers Graham and Gina Darlow had more than 100 power poles and wires running through their paddocks which they had to constantly work around when cropping.
With approximately 1,000 head of cattle they had the added risk of the destabilisation of power poles as a result of cattle scratching themselves against the poles.
Power poles in paddocks present a range of farm safety issues including:
- Destabilisation of power poles caused by cattle scratching against the poles risking:
- Costly damage to infrastructure
- Poles and wires knocking together and causing pole top fires
- Farm machinery colliding with power poles, particularly during seeding and harvesting when machines operate at night, risking:
- peoples’ safety
- machinery damage
- power pole damage
- Pole top fires caused by:
- dust on the wires
- extreme weather events
- bird collisions
- Aerial sprayers clipping power lines
Solution
Design and deploy two customised Stand-alone Power System (SAPS) combining solar photovoltaic panels, advanced battery storage technology and back-up generation to power:
- Homestead
- Workshop
Specifications: R-Series SAPS
Two systems totalling:
- 21.6 kW of solar panels
- 42 kWh of battery storage
- 15 kVA of back-up diesel generation