Canberra based SME ECLIPS (formerly Sea Box International) demonstrated their CROSS (container roll-out solar system) and CROWS (container roll-out warehousing system) last week for a range of Defence and industry players.
An innovative engineering solution that sees a solar powered micro grid ready to run in only a few hours with a team of three people, the system can be carried in either a 20 (2,175 watts/rack) or 40 (4,350 watts/rack) foot ISO container. Each CROSS container can fit seven CROWS fitted racks.
Suitable for use in remote areas or military applications, the system essentially uses two containers – one for the solars cells that can sit on 10, 20 or 30-degree slopes, and another for the load balancing equipment, where the company has partnered with ABB.
What was made quickly clear to those at the demo was the speed and ease of deployment. A small detachment of people, a forklift and a truck saw the roller mounted CROSS on its CROWS set up in minutes.
While only one CROSS was one show, the ARENA co-funded development can be daisy chained together to scale up or down as required. ARENA said the $703,468 total project opens up markets not previously available to the renewables industry, including defence, disaster recovery, humanitarian, construction and temporary network augmentation.
While manufactured in China, all the design work was done in house by ECLIPS, with a quality assurance manager working with two Chinese manufacturers on the factory floor to get the high quality standards demanded by the SME’s design.
“CROSS builds upon the work we’ve done with the ADF in our flatrack business and there are so many uses for this technology in the military and beyond,” ECLIPS managing director Shaun Moore said.
ADM understands that the company is also in talks with potential customers in the US and UK.