Swimming Academy goes smart

This has been one of our favourite solutions to date! The owner of a swimming academy installed a major 12kW, 3-phase Sunsynk inverter with 10kWh of battery storage and 16,500w of solar generation capability.

Unfortunately, despite this large system, she was forced to close the swim academy on many occasions due to the heat and pool pumps tripping the inverter and, therefore, not getting the pool temperatures up to the required levels. To mitigate the tripping, one of the heat pumps was removed from the inverter and placed back on Eskom power. This resulted in lost solar production opportunities, increased grid usage and the inability to heat one of the pools during load-shedding.  

After increased frustration, she approached a solar installer for a solution and was advised that she needed to install another 12kW, 3-phase inverter in order to adequately handle the loads – this would have increased the total inverter capacity to 24kW.

After becoming aware of her predicament, we requested that she hold off on the additional inverter and allow us to do an analysis of the current setup.

Our immediate finding was that the phases were imbalanced and that the load exceeded the maximum per-phase capacity during load-shedding. As such, the entire system would shut down due to overload. After completing our assessment, we determined that the total load of the heat pumps and pool pumps were well within the inverter’s capacity and we simply needed to introduce our energy management solution. 

This was great news as we eased her fears of another major capital outlay! 

We began by re-balancing the phases and including the missing heat pump on the inverter. We then introduced smart devices to control each pump and installed our energy management software. We were acutely aware of the inrush current on both of the pool pumps and configured our solution to phase in load to the inverter. Once the pool pumps had turned on and their respective loads settled to normal operating levels, our automation would then permit the heat pumps to operate. The result was that we incorporated all of the required pumps on the inverter without tripping the system.

Another useful feature of our solution is the ability to control the individual loads. Under a traditional installation, if solar production and/or the batteries dropped below a certain level, the inverter would cut power to all of the loads. This would have rendered the entire swimming academy useless as none of the pumps could operate.

Our solution overcomes this problem by enabling micro-control over the load. If solar production starts to drop and various other parameters are exceeded, the automation will systematically reduce the load by turning off specific pumps rather than everything. As a simple example, if the load exceeds solar production, the automation will begin by turning off heat pump number 1. Once off, if the load continues to exceed solar production, the automation will then turn off heat pump number 2. If solar production starts to recover, the automation will then systematically re-introduce load by turning the various pumps back on. This approach maximises the usage of the pumps and increases solar utilisation. 

Through our solution, we have also automated a very tedious and manual process; previously, the staff had to go to the academy and turn the pumps on and off despite having timers as they would lose their settings due to load shedding and other grid outages. Although the pumps are now fully automated by our system – meaning no human intervention is required for their operation – the client remains in control and can override our automation from the convenience of their mobile device anywhere in the world.

In this instance, our solution saved the client over R60,000 just by selecting our automation solution – this is a massive saving in its own right! 

In addition to the initial savings, when reviewing the data logs (prior to our installation), we noted that the maximum solar production achieved in a single day was 53kWh. Our solution has dramatically increased this number to the extent that we have seen in excess of 85kWh generated in a single day. That equates to a 60% increase solely in solar utilisation! 

The results speak for themselves and the answer is simple, stop wasting your solar energy and Automate[it] today.