Morningstar solar controllers for protecting oil & gas operations and making mining operations safer
The fossil-fuel industry, particularly oil and gas, depends on the renewable energy industry for many aspects of extraction, production and transportation. Pumping and mining operations are often far removed from access to the electrical grid, and using generators is often prohibitively expensive and impractical. At the well, renewables are called upon to power injection pumps, lighting equipment, and monitoring devices. Along the pipeline, renewables are often the only means of providing cathodic protection to prevent corrosion and ensure pipeline integrity. Renewable energy provides costeffective, dependable electricity for mission-critical communications, data acquisition, metering, site security, and much more.
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Cathodic protection is primarily used to protect steel structures buried in soil or immersed in water and offers many advantages for corrosion protection. Electronic cathodic protection must maintain constant voltage and current to be effective. Therefore, it is important for these sites to maintain good charging control and communications typically via satellite or other wireless communications. In mining, many of the same conditions apply. Far removed from grid electricity, mines require on-site electrical generation for critical safety systems and security systems. Often this electrical demand is on top of the already high power-consumption of an operating mine, which also has to take heavy mining,
transportation and ventilation equipment into account. Solar electric-powered lighting towers are increasingly used to provide power generation for dispatch, data networks, data and lighting. For on-site lighting, mining operations often use mobile light trailer towers with high efficiency LED spotlights powered by batteries recharged with solar panels and sometimes a wind turbine-powered generator. The “heart and brains� of these solar electric systems is its solar controller. The solar controller provides proper battery charging, which will fully charge the batteries during the day while also protecting the battery, often the most expensive component, from overcharging.
www.riskmanagementinsight.co.za
May-June Issue 2020
