03/12/2018
About
This month RFI “turned on” our 100kW solar system at our manufacturing facility in Bayswater, Victoria. The solar system features 540 solar modules, a bank of SolarEdge inverters and a 40kWh battery storage system.
This 100kW solar system will save approximately 110MWh in the first year and the solar generation will offset about 60% of the site energy usage, saving around 120 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. The 40kWh energy storage system will also allow us to offset the demand variable allowing RFI to provide most of its energy consumption in the peak summer months.
On current figures, the installation will pay for itself in six years with an ROI of 53% after 10 years and an ROI of 321% in 25 years.
Scott Magee, CEO said, “This solar power system demonstrates our many decades of involvement with renewable energy in Australia, but also the long-term commitment we have to manufacturing in Australia”.
The 4000sqm Bayswater facility is the largest of our three manufacturing facilities. The Bayswater facility is Australia’s largest antenna manufacturing facility. We also operate an additional systems manufacturing facility in Bayswater and a high specification radio repeater manufacturing facility in Adelaide.
The RFI Energy Solutions team designed a tailored solution for our Melbourne site, which includes one SolarEdge 27.6kW 3-phase and three SolarEdge 10kW 3-phase inverters. SolarEdge DC optimised inverter solution offers advanced PV monitoring in real-time and asset management through its cloud-based monitoring platform. Power optimisers constantly track maximum power points and report high-resolution data on panel performance. SolarEdge inverters provide comprehensive analytics tracking and reports of energy yield, system uptime, performance ratio and financial performance. The ability to connect two panels to one optimiser, combined with DC to AC conversion and grid interaction being centralised at a simplified PV inverter maintains a competitive cost structure.
The RFI Energy Solutions team project managed this solution and teamed up with partner, Powercom Solar for installation and commissioning.
