Cooling down the container

Greece’s bril­liant sunshine is not just a tourist attrac­tion. The 300 sunny days per year also pay off in another respect: the country long ago discov­ered its immense poten­tial as a produc­tion site for solar energy. Since last year, the Greek govern­ment has been inten­sively subsi­dising the construc­tion of solar parks in order to strengthen this new branch of the economy. Gnettle has recog­nised this trend and, since January 2012, has been producing protec­tive containers for the elec­trical equip­ment in solar parks. The white struc­tures contain all neces­sary compo­nents for bringing the energy from the photo­voltaic system to the mains power supply as elec­tricity, for example trans­formers and power converters.

Smart solu­tion

John Mylonas, Sales Engi­neer at Helcoma, and Zois Parthymos, Appli­ca­tion Tech­nology specialist at Gnettle

However, the strong Greek sun also heats up the container. So that the heat outside and the heat given off inside by the elec­trical system do not impair the oper­a­tion of the equip­ment, the containers have to be cooled. Usually, this job is done by a rela­tively low-effi­ciency split climate control system. However, Gnettle has decided in favour of a smart, energy saving solu­tion; fans with Green­Tech EC tech­nology now ensure the proper temper­a­ture. Plug fans bring outside air into the container, while an axial fan disperses the heated air to the outside. In co-oper­a­tion with Helcoma – ebm-papst’s repre­sen­ta­tive in Greece – Gnettle not only attains much higher air perfor­mance than with split climate control systems, but also saves energy.

Reacting flex­ibly

Cool air for solar parks: a protec­tive container by Gnettle

“However, lower power consump­tion was not the only factor that led us to decide in favour of EC,” says Nikos Kazantzis, Head of Systems Engi­neering at Gnettle. “The most impor­tant thing was that all of the compo­nents for control­ling the speed are already inte­grated into the fan, allowing it to be programmed easily.” This is partic­u­larly impor­tant for this appli­ca­tion, as the fans have to react flex­ibly to both the changing outside temper­a­tures and the vari­able elec­tricity produc­tion and the resulting vari­able amounts of heat given off.