IPA S.A. Automation Engineering

Mr. Silvian Fara
sfara@automation.ipa.ro

The Institute is involved in an INCO-Copernicus project ‘Stand-Alone PV Systems for Emergency Signal Transmission and Environmental Control in Isolated Mountain Areas’ which aims to demonstrate the benefits of photovoltaic (PV)-powered systems for autonomous and reliable power supply in isolated areas.

The project also demonstrates the applicability of PV and also promotes the dissemination of information for the building sector.

Two representative systems were built in Romania by IPA SA, an emergency signal repeater located on the top of a mountain chain in a highly frequented tourist resort at Predeal, and a high-altitude station for environmental measurements at Fundata. Both are small-scale systems with an installed PV array power of 350 watts and 600 watts. The systems were designed to have a 10-day autonomy and to be operated by organisations who are not specialists in PV technology.

An outstanding feature of these designs is the remote operational control unit, which guarantees a high degree of system reliability. The systems are provided with data acquisition units that continuously control the operation, periodically transfer the acquired data and send alarm signals to the main station in the event of operational problems. In this way, a failure can be detected immediately and operation gaps reduced to a minimum.

These two standardised low-power, stand-alone PV systems demonstrate the state-of-the-art in PV system technology and boost the development of this emerging market in Central and Eastern Europe.

Project Partners were WIP Munchen – Germany (Project Co-ordinator); IPA SA – Romania; CRES – Greece and IAP – Republic of Moldova.