Power Your Life with Element 82's Cutting-Edge Energy Solutions

Agrivoltaics : Agriculture & Photovoltaics (Solar Panels).

It's nothing new, farming, we've been doing it for thousands of years now. Solar panels have been around since the 1980s. But now yields per square metre matter and power prices continue to rise and our need for resilience from power outages and the independence that brings with today's modern monitoring technologies is price-less.

Imagine being able to run farm equipment off solar you've generated, imaging if the diesel mechanic no longer needed to visit for routine maintenance of your tractors because those were electric. Imagine having access to shade in your fields for cattle or that the shade meant you didn't need to irrigate the crops so often because the plants had better water retention because they didn't dry out. Or that the panels could provide shelter from hail storms. (solar panels can do that, yes).

Studies in Spain have found that a small reduction in light for crops like lettuce was beneficial when the solar array was installed with sufficient spacing for light. In fact, only a small reduction in yield was found as the gaps were closed and broad leaf vegetables only needed 50% of the usable light in the day for photosynthesis.  Additionally, the soil could hold more moisture meaning a reduction in water consumption. Any reduction in growth yield was easily met by the benefit of selling back power to the national grid. That didn't even account for the savings the farmer would make if they were to use the generated free power themselves.

If you are grazing animals, especially lighter animals than a cow then a pole-mounted solar array is a simple addition to your land. Sheep will keep the grass maintained around the array meaning little to no maintenance and the shade provided could have a positive impact on the health of the animals. 

You might even be able to offset some of your carbon emissions are work towards a carbon zero operation. You certainly are in a better position with a solar solution than you are without one and the possibility of storing your energy for use later has many benefits.

There are many requirements to a Solar Installation including many terms used by the industry professionals to describe the services provided, required and standards.

These include definitions of appliance vs. fittings, L.V. vs E. L.V., Prescribed Electrical Work (PEW) and Record of Inspection (ROI). Along with installation standards AS/NZS 3000, AS/NZS 5033, electrical safety standards for fittings like AS/NZS 4777.1 or other requirements for Battery Energy Storage Systems (B.E.S.S) that have been introduced more recently.

A quick overview of these requirements is included here by following this link to the SEANZ website.

Certification requirements for Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Systems From MBIE: Energy Safety

Element 82 has always maintained a distributor and reseller network. Some products are easier to sell this way than others. Times also change and resellers are embracing new sales channels and move online to focus on national sales rather than their regional focus. It has brought about many interesting questions we have to regularly ask ourselves. Are we an importer, distributor or retailer.

We are an importer of quality products, we also provide technical support, warranty and handle inquiries directly with the factory for many of our products. Over time this has led to many customers and OEM's requiring us to provide them with equipment directly or indirectly via group purchasing agreements or products by association. We endeavor to maintain a distribution and reseller relationship with many of our products but are sometimes limited to the available businesses in an area. Or ability for some organisations to carry the required range of products to best support a brand (maybe an example would be to carry the range of accessories required that support a product). Which means sometimes we end up dealing with customers directly. We understand that makes our business a Business to Consumer sales channel while we try hard to maintain a business to business channel. This is no different to any of our competitors offering a trade counter anyway or regional offices that work directly with local businesses.

Regardless New Zealand is a small place and someone always knows someone at the other end of the country that they used to work with or deal with. We can't change that, nor would we want to. We are all in this great space together so from time to time we may be dealing with someone in your area or field. We didn't choose this way of operating, it chose us. New Zealand has always been a find out the best place to get something from, or look for the best price, or deal direct with the person that knows the product best.

Spec sheets for the individual items can be found in each pages product description. Brand or product overviews can be found below.

A lead-acid battery can be designed for different purposes. General use, starting, high power, stand-by and lastly Deep-Cycle. Element 82 has a large range of maintenance-free, sealed, AGM Deep Cycle batteries. It one of our specialties actually, matching up your battery needs with a suitably purposed battery.

A deep cycle battery charges in whats referred to a cyclic application at a voltage higher than a float charger or alternator. It's for that reason particular attention should be paid to the charger or charging devices so to enhance your batteries and operate as per the manufacturer's recommendations. If doing so you'll extend the usable life of the battery and therefore its service life and be on target to achieve the expected depth of discharge and cycles outlined and expected.

This means your battery will correctly maintained, be of more use to the users and perform as expected and offer real value for money as opposed to examples where start batteries which are cheaper upfront but cost much more in the bigger picture as they require replacement more often.

Solar panels aim to collect the sun's energy and convert it into power which we store in batteries. It's a game where every percentage matters over the 12 hours of daylight and the 365 days of a year. As always the solar philosophy, size of the array, positioning angle, wiring configuration, distance and collector or conversion, and its storage can give a great variance in total power stored throughout a year.

The same considerations can be made at every turn in the system design and needless to say each component during its design, development through to final assembled component. With panels, there are now also options on frame colour, backing colour, J-Box connectors in portrait or landscape on top of the technology benefits each brand markets as they jostle for marketing one-up-man-ship with each other.

Let's leave that in some respects to the marketers of this world and focus on the facts; the product needs to be of known quality, proven materials and design and is readily available. Importantly you might consider such constrains as physical size because if you ever need to replace a module you'll want to know the physical dimension wasn't a one-off speciality. Therefore product design and road-mapping are important from the manufacturer.

A world-renowned manufacturer of panels has a lot more to lose as a brand than a factory which will OEM any brand onto their panels as that doesn't affect the factory in any way if something goes wrong. They are also more conscious of the long term outcome, performance and visual appearance of their old product that's still in service. For that reason, they use a higher grade of material with proven longevity.

These as with any other 20 things we could list is why we stick with the big brands. With Australia on our doorstep, we can rely on their real-world field testing to ensure anything we use in NZ is up to standard and we can also take advantage of the large factories having Australian offices with the region being one of the most popular in the world for installation. This means we can benefit from their quantity purchasing programs. Just another reason why we don't sell cheap unknown brands.

With half cells, semi shading allowances, allow power to be generated while overcast. MPPT extends controller efficiencies in converting the energy and battery cycle-life improvements give a solution that one could almost say is generational. It's no longer a case of wait for things to get better or the cost to come down. The time is now, the technology will only improve and further enhance your existing system and not hinder its expansion.