EGL expands service offering into solar farms - TechInvest Magazine Online

The Environmental Group Limited (ASX: EGL) has made a strategic entry into the supply of air filtration systems in the solar energy industry.

Key Highlights:

• EGL engineering designed a unique air filtration system to significantly reduce particulate matter entering solar farm inverters.

• Preventing the matter entering the inverters will lead to a significant reduction in maintenance and power production down time.

• The filtration system will reduce the risk of fire and explosion in the inverters due to the build-up of particulate matter.

• The technology was derived from the Baltec IES divisions design for gas turbine inlet filtration systems utilising the groups intellectual property.

• EGL has signed its first contract to supply air filtration systems into the solar energy market for $2.1 million.

The technology development highlights the strength of the EGL engineering team to utilise their product knowledge and adapt it to a new growing industry. Leveraging Baltec IES’s 20 years’ experience supplying effective gas turbine inlet filtration systems, the team have designed the technology to provide a unique solution for the customer.

The system will remove particulate matter while maintaining required inlet flow rates to allow cooling of inverters. There was no viable OEM (original equipment supplier) solution available in the marketplace to significantly reduce the particulate matter entering solar farm inverters.

The EGL design enables continuous operation for over six months without need to change filters. The technology can have a significant impact in lowering the risk of inverter failure, while increasing power output for the solar farm and lowering OHS risk. Entering the inverters is a high- risk task involving electrical isolation, the frequency of which will be greatly reduced.

EGL will offer this product as a solution to a significant solar industry problem, especially for solar farms in dry and dusty locations. While the first sale is not material to the company’s earnings it opens a significant potential marketplace both domestically and internationally.

The solar farm industry has seen significant growth in Australia with 151 registered solar farms producing greater than 5 MW as at the end of 2022. Large scale solar projects have a current installed capacity of 9.8GW, representing around 13% of total power generation in Australia. EGL is very pleased to provide a technologically advanced solution that is in line with our core values of engineering a sustainable future.