ComAp’s Renewable Energy Centre of Excellence (RCE) is dedicated to developing solutions that meet the needs of the ever-growing renewable energy market. The RCE, based in Brisbane Australia, not only provides consultancy and advice on projects, but can also provide a complete, turn-key control system installation depending on the needs of the client. The RCE staff have many years of industry experience combined with advanced engineering knowledge and are able to deliver solutions for any renewable energy control application.

The RCE is an initiative of ComAp Australia and ComAp Renewable Energy Segment based at ComAp’s headquarters in Prague, Czech Republic. “ComAp believes that the future of power generation should be as environmentally responsible as possible, and our establishment of the Renewable Centre of Excellence puts ComAp at the forefront of the renewable energy control industry into the future,” says Chris Pye, RCE Manager at ComAp Australia.

The RCE focuses on using ComAp’s wide range of products and applies them to various installations using renewable energy resources. ComAp has solutions which convert diesel engines to run primarily on natural gas, control systems for photovoltaic plants, solutions for solar/wind/diesel microgrids, solutions to increase the efficiency of diesel engines and even solutions that can predict cloud cover to increase the efficiency of diesel-photovoltaic systems. The flexibility of ComAp’s products ensures that if you want to reduce the environmental impact of your power generation of any kind, ComAp is here to help.

One of the RCE’s specialisations is using ComAp’s InteliSys NTC Hybrid controller to control an off-grid microgrid consisting of diesel generators and renewable sources of power, such as solar panels and/or wind turbines. A hybrid microgrid provides customers with no access to the grid, such as on islands or in remote communities, a reliable, sustainable and highly efficient source of power.

One such installation that the RCE was recently involved in was at Willinga Park, an equestrian facility in Australia which is located at the very edge of the grid power infrastructure. Rather than investing in upgrading the mains supply, it was decided to install a hybrid diesel-solar microgrid, which allowed the park’s owners to have a reliable source of power including renewable energy, regardless of their atypical location at the very edge of the national power grid.