Isolated village in Cape Verde

Isolated village in Cape Verde

The installation at ´Vale da custa´ in Cape Verde, is a project which has been carried out thanks to European collaborative funds and which has required the use of the latest technology in renewable energies.

This new project was based on the development of a electricity-generating micro station by means of renewable energies combining polycrystalline solar technology, the mini wind turbine Enair 70 and the most advanced SMA inverters on the market.

The microgeneration plant, has a nominal power of 45 kW and is capable of supplying point peaks of more than 100 kW. In addition, thanks to the adequate sizing of the generation equipment, there is a perfect balance between generation and consumption, so that the system's own design makes energy flow from wind turbines and photovoltaic to the Village network without having to use batteries. The fact that the energy only circulates by the batteries in specific cases is a very important advantage in this type of system because it avoids charging cycles and provides a much greater battery life.

The installation is made up of a 15 kW mini wind turbine and a 20 kW photovoltaic plant which are connected directly to the alternating consumption bus via Windy Boy and Sunny Mini central inverters which are managed by 6 intelligent Sunny Island network managers. Sunny Island creates the three-phase network, maintaining a fully stable 400V and 50Hz voltage. The management consists of supplying energy to the grid’s batteries, charging batteries with the excess, starting a backup generator if necessary and even starting external auxiliary loads by optimizing the electric generation.

The three-phase network generated is distributed throughout the Village thanks to a newly installed power line over 10 km in length. In case more energy or more power is needed, the micro generation plant can be replicated so that several of these can be distributed around the perimeters of the village and with the possibility of looking for the most favourable points of wind and solar resources.