Run by father and son team Ian and Tony Schirmer, CQSola manufactures safety and optimisation equipment for the solar industry across domestic, commercial and solar farms.
Realising there were safety and efficiency issues in the solar industry, Ian - an electrical engineer with 40 years of experience in power systems, control systems, communication systems and electronics - says his optimisation product makes solar power generation quicker than anything on the market.
He took a sabbatical for three years and eventually left his job to design the product, which evolved from a simple optimiser to a solar data collector, optimiser and safety switch that can turn off solar power at the source, which is helpful in the event of a fire.
“We have the only product as far as we know that can track power to a one-second by one-second detail, which means we can apply big data and analytics. With this technology we can start doing some AI and detect things that you wouldn’t be able to detect otherwise,” Tony says.
By using the CQSola optimiser, solar farms in particular have a lot to gain. The technology the team has developed results in maximum power output regardless of changes in lighting, the types of solar panels used and the condition of the panels.
Changes in lighting
“Panels are put into a series where the power flows from one panel to the next and you get the power at the end of the string. This means if one of the panels has shade on it the whole string only performs as well as the lowest panel,” Tony says.
Currently solar farms use a method of extracting power that relies on Maximum Power Point Trackers in an attempt to get maximum power as the cloud cover changes. This process usually takes up to 15 minutes to adjust.
The CQSola optimiser uses a method that knows the maximum power and adjusts to cloud cover, dust and light changes within two seconds, meaning if one panel is shaded it won’t decrease the entire farm’s performance.
This also allows solar farms to build high-voltage overhead wires. This minimises costs when building solar farms as they no longer need to be positioned to avoid as much shade as possible.
Types of panels
Generally, you can’t easily swap one solar panel out for another due to different voltages and because panels have to be grouped together based on their performance.
“If you swapped out a panel you would need to replace it with the same brand, panel, voltage and rating,” Tony says.
Due to the difficulty in swapping out panels, solar farms currently buy and store extra panels, which is costly. CQSola solves this problem as their device allows you to swap out any panel with any brand panel at any given time.
Condition of panels
The condition of panels is commonly monitored by drones fitted with thermal cameras, which is a big process.
And as the string of panels will only work as good as the worst panel this can be detrimental to the entire output of the farm.
The CQSola device can immediately determine if there are any broken or degraded panels, tell you where the panel is and what you need to replace it. The technology then isolates the bad panels without impacting the rest of the string, maintaining optimum power to the whole system.
This is also beneficial in a commercial environment.
“CQSola can collect one-second data on panels across commercial sites to tell within a second if there is a broken panel, or a panel that needs cleaning and what the combined power is at any point in time. This means we can manage 40 to 50 sites with one computer screen and by one person,” Tony says.
Regarding CQSola in a domestic market, Tony adds: “Right now solar is the only thing that is put on to a house that we know of that breaks the cabling laws as far as we interpret them. This is because you can’t completely turn off solar installations, only isolate them from the main supply, which is a huge issue if someone is injured or there is a fire.
“The product we’ve developed allows you to turn off the solar system, letting emergency services to do their jobs.”
Currently, they are chasing a SIL 2 safety rating - meaning at any one point two measures have to say the panels are running for the panels to actually run, and if one point of safety fails it turns the entire system off.
“This will allow the product to be installed in government, mining, military use - any industry that requires extra safety certifications.
“As far as we know this will be the first device with a SIL 2 safety rating, allowing the panels to be marked as at safe levels of electricity at any given time.”
The CQSola product also has efficiencies of 99.5% power transfer, meaning very little heat is lost.
“This is super important because it means we don’t need a cooling system and we can seal the whole solar system in a plastic box. Because of this sealing we are working on getting an IP 60 water rating. This essentially means you’d be able to put the panels in water at a high voltage for an hour without any issues.
“If this certification comes through we will be the only product with this rating that doesn’t have anything sticking out of it. There are others on the market but they aren’t able to transfer as much power and certainly aren’t ready for solar farms as far as we can tell.
“We’re completely self-funded at this stage, our next step is to get some pre-sales in the domestic market and generate interest from existing or new solar farms. We do have interest from a solar farm, but can’t disclose the details of that.”
