Projects

SunWize provided a hybrid system to power a remote communication site located at Mount Perkins in Mojave County, Arizona.

Location: Malinau Kota, Borneo, Indonesia
Products: SunLight SL-10L-12V controllers
Partners include: PT AZET

The only transportation to the town of Malinau, the administrative capital of the Regency, is by air. More than 70 Morningstar SunLight 10L to 12V, 20W DC PL lamps help light the way for planes to safely land, as well as providing essential street lighting.

Location: Antofagasta, Chile
Year: 2020
Products: SunSaver SS-MPPT-15L controllers
System size: One 330W solar panel with
50Ah, 24V lithium battery per skid (54 total)
Partners include: Connexa, RELiON

Antofagasta lies between the Pacific coast and Northern Chile’s Atacama Desert. Corrosive salt in the air and harsh desert extremes combined with dangerous gasses and liquids potentially present in industrial applications create a demanding environment for power electronics. A client sought a way of remotely powering sensor systems to monitor liquids in this challenging setting. Logistics posed yet another concern: any solution had to fit in a small pickup truck and be manageable with a two-person installation. Connexa’s team constructed 54 container-loaded skid systems. Each included one solar module, a RELiON lithium battery, a Morningstar SunSaver SS-MPPT-15L charge controller, and a stainless steel enclosure. Connexa specifies SunSaver controllers because they’re approved for use in hazardous locations: Class 1, Division 2. Also, RELiON is a member of Morningstar’s Energy Storage Partner Program, which ensured a reliable, seamless solution.

Locations: Evans, Colorado; Beaumont, TX; Big Spring, TX; Eldorado, TX
Year: 2017 – 2019
Products: TriStar TS-MPPT-60 controllers, Relay Driver (RD-1)
System size: Various
Customers: End 2 End, Scallon Controls, Inc., Plains all American, Magellan Crude Oil Pipeline

SolarCraft provides high-quality engineered solutions to integrate, power, shelter and deploy critical field automation. It chooses to use Morningstar controllers for their ruggedness and reliability in customer applications.

Location: North Sea
Products: Relay DriverTM (RD-1), MeterHubTM (HUB-1),
EIA-485/RS-232 Adapter (RSC-1), Remote Temperature Sensor (RTS),
TriStar TS-MPPT-60 controllers
Year: 2015
System size: Solar installation connected to a 24V battery system
Partners include: Shell, Tideland Signal, Marlec

Shell is working on reducing the net carbon footprint of its energy production, an initiative that includes retrofitting offshore facilities including platforms and NUIs (Normally Unmanned Installations) with solar power. Because NUIs see decades of operational use in the harsh weather of the North Sea, with plenty of snow and cloud cover, remote management is difficult. Instead of continuing with two diesel generators constantly online, in 2015, Shell began to simplify the normally unmanned installation by
removing process equipment that was no longer useful or redundant and retrofitting with solar.

Tideland Signal selected Morningstar TriStars, among other components, for use in its systems designed to meet the European Union’s ATEX-certification for use in hazardous locations. The controllers are ideal for the application, featuring everything necessary to reliably operate in the harsh environment. The solar installation makes it easier to maintain the NUIs with simpler equipment and lower emissions. Now, generators are only used for emergencies.

Location: Gulf of Thailand
Year: 2019
Product: TriStar
System size: Solar power systems on eight wellhead platforms with a battery bank producing 15 kWh/day
Partners include: Orga BV, PTTEP

Offshore unmanned wellhead platforms are automated oil and gas assets designed for remote operation controlled by onshore teams. Deploying maintenance crews in harsh sea conditions is treacherous and expensive, so reliability is of the utmost importance when it comes to the power generation systems deployed on these assets.

Over the last 20 years, many offshore oil and gas operators have switched to solar-based power generation solutions to minimize maintenance and maximize power availability in the confined space available on these units. For example, Orga BV outfitted eight of PTTEP’s wellhead platforms in the Gulf of Thailand with solar. Orga chose to use Morningstar components because their MPPT technology minimizes expensive enclosure space requirements while automated resetting offers extended maintenance intervals.

Location: Malaysia/Southeast Asia
Year: 2021
Products: TriStar TS-MPPT-60-48V controllers
System size: 23kW of 320W solar panels with five sets of 48V, 1965Ah battery banks
Partners include: Swift Energy, PTTEP, Honeywell

Coming out of a challenging year with the COVID-19 severely affecting the global economy and causing a significant drop in demand for crude oil, national petroleum exploration and production company PTTEP is glad to get back on track with the installation and start-up of the Pemanis gas facility. The project’s wellheads sit offshore Malaysia’s Kuching shipyard and transmit information in regard to pressure, temperatures, gas metering, etc. back to an operations center on land via satellite.

PTTEP commissioned Swift Energy to provide a solar installation to power remote data gathering on the wellheads. The system included 48V VRLA batteries, 72 320W zone 1 solar panels wired in 48V, and eight Morningstar TriStar controllers. The TriStars include a Modbus interface which gathers data and passes it along to a Honeywell remote terminal unit (RTU) cabinet that transmits back to the operations center. The efficiency and dependability of Morningstar’s MPPT technology, along with its range of online resources to help simplify sizing and easily perform site and cost software analysis, made Morningstar a good choice for this and other Swift Energy projects.

Products: ProStar, SunSaver controllers
Partners include: Automation-X

As a provider to the oil and gas industry, Automation-X uses Morningstar charge
controllers in its battery boxes and solar applications for durable, reliable solutions.