Visiting the Village
25 October 2023
AJC Power Solutions has set aside an area outside its Luton headquarters as an Innovation Village where it can display some of its flagship products designed to enable sites to lower their carbon footprints.
The operation was founded roughly a year ago as a sibling business to AJC EasyCabin, which had been developing new welfare cabins, accommodation, toilets and other site equipment incorporating solar, battery and hydrogen technologies. The potential was quickly seen for stand-alone products to deliver green energy for on-site power requirements.
A large additional factory unit adjacent to the welfare cabin manufacturing building had been purchased during the Covid lockdown and this was the obvious place to house the Power Solutions activity.
Much of the technology used has been adapted for welfare and power applications by Simon Fletcher, AJC’s Operations Director. Several specialist personnel have also been recruited to develop the AJC Power Solutions operation including Adam Davies, Renewables Business Development Manager, whose previous industry experience includes working as Technical Sales Manager with Hybrid Power Hire, and Michael Robbins, Business Development Manager, who was previously Sales Director with Power Saving Solutions UK.
Mark Samuel, AJC’s Business Development Director, says that much of the initial focus was on making the power products compact. “We were used to making welfare products that people would walk inside but for the Power Solutions equipment we have looked at ways of saving space and weight. This makes the equipment easier to transport and manoeuvre on site.”
Products displayed in the Innovation Village range from equipment that can run with minimal use of a backup generator – as most of the time they run off the integral battery charged by solar panels – to true hybrid setups with a separate battery energy storage unit and the generator can kick in to cope with higher demands.
The company carefully sources the solar panels it uses. These are in various sizes and output capacities so that the maximum performance can be achieved relative to the available space.
Similarly AJC has lithium-ion batteries made to its own specifications. These are in two main sizes, namely 100Ah/5kWh and 200Ah/10kWh, the latter obviously having double the capacity but are actually less than twice the size, helping to reduce the overall footprint of the host machine.
The batteries incorporate a heat mat to control their temperature and to enable use in ambient conditions ranging from 60C down to minus 20C.
Simon Fletcher has also helped to develop a rack-mounted battery system for quick swap-overs and replacement. We will be seeing this on future products and it offers a range on interesting possibilities.
One of the main AJC Power Solutions products is the Solar Pod hybrid unit which combines a battery with fold-out solar panels and a backup generator that can run on HVO fuel. The company says that when used to power a typical site setup with up to, say, four welfare cabins, the battery usually provides enough power for most requirements; if the load increases, such as when a kettle or heater is switched on, the generator will start as required.
The Battery Pod is a dedicated battery energy storage system that stores power from the grid, a generator or solar panels and directs it to where it is needed, from the optimum source. Three capacities are available: 30kVA/80kW, 45kVA/100kW and 45kVA/150kW.
Where more power capacity is needed, the battery unit can be connected to an additional energy source like AJC’s Solar Smart Frame panels, which are designed to fit on top of 20ft or 32ft cabins or can be used stand-alone on the ground. This shows the modular nature of this kind of equipment, which can be configured and tailored to meet different site requirements. Each frame can provide 5kW.
Power can be fed to applications such as electric vehicle charging and any surplus can be stored in a Battery Pod.
Other AJC Power Solutions products include the Charge Pod, a solar hybrid charging station with lockable compartments for charging battery tools; the Solar Tower Pod lighting tower that is driven by a battery charged by solar power; and the Solar Light Zero street light that has a small solar panel and switches on automatically when movement is detected.
Besides proving popular in the UK, AJC Power Solutions products are attracting export orders from Europe, Saudi Arabia, the US and Australia.
The Innovation Village also highlights several products from the AJC EasyCabin welfare portfolio. More on those and the wider manufacturing operation in a future blog post.
Photos: Alan Guthrie
