A grower-packer might run a bin dump, wash bed with brushes and spray bars, a wax applicator, a drying tunnel with fans and sometimes heaters, then a roller sizer and packing tables. A small pump recirculates wash water, and lighting covers early starts in winter, which is citrus harvest time in much of New Zealand and southern Australia. An outage with fruit wet in the wax section leaves a sticky mess and a half-finished batch.
The hybrid inverter and LiFePO4 battery switch over without a gap, so conveyors, brushes and sizer motors carry on. The fuel cell supplies the steady load from hydrogen made on off-peak power and stored at 30 bar or less. Since the shed runs mainly in the cooler months, the store can be filled during quiet periods and held for weeks.
How it works →
Brushes, conveyors, pumps and fans in a small shed fit within 15 kW continuous. Electric heaters in the drying tunnel are another matter: they can be heavy loads, and heat from hydrogen at 30% or less round-trip efficiency is costly. Some sheds can run fan-only drying during an outage. Larger packhouses with long sizing lines and big heaters would need a larger or multi-unit setup sized in the pilot.
Only if it is small and the total stays within 15 kW. Many sheds can run fans only during an outage and let fruit dry a little slower. The pilot would check whether the heater fits.
No. The inverter runs in UPS mode, so the sizer and its controller see no interruption and carry on with the same settings as before the grid dropped. Packers keep packing the same grades without stopping to reset.
It would be sited outside the packing area. It is designed to AS/NZS 60079 and ISO 19880, with redundant leak sensors, automatic shutdown and venting, and storage at 30 bar or less.
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